Punk heaps praise onto all three men.
It has been several weeks since CM Punk made his return to WWE after nearly a full decade since he left the company in 2014. Punk is a member of the Monday Night Raw roster and coming up as a part of WWE’s holiday house shows, he’ll be wrestling Dominik Mysterio in Madison Square Garden and at The Kia Forum.
Elite Comics11 went live on Instagram for a charity stream and CM Punk guest appeared. He was asked to recall a match when he started to piece things together as a wrestler and after thinking about it, he brought up a three-way he had with Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero for IWA Mid-South in 2002.
Punk said that match kind of put him on the map and he knew he was not as good as he thought he was at the time. Punk then spoke about working with Rey on WWE’s main roster and says that felt like a level up and a litmus test. He would go on to reflect on his feud with John Cena and being trusted to be a part of that. Punk said it was always a ‘night off’ working with Cena.
Oh God, a match? A match where I kind of figured things out? I really don’t know. I’d really have to think about it and maybe working with Rey Mysterio and Eddie (Guerrero) for the first time. We famously did a three-way in like a — I don’t know. It was like a school gymnasium somewhere in Indianapolis or it was somewhere in Indiana or something like that for IWA (Mid-South). It was when Eddie was in between jobs. Rey, WCW had just kind of folded. Rey was one of the guys that was not signing with WWE right away and that one kind of put me on the map, but it also gave a lot of stuff that — I knew I wasn’t as good as I thought I was at that moment, you know? Working with pros like Rey and Eddie and so, it just kind of set me down the path of there’s a whole new bar for me after working with these guys and I have to try to reach to get to it, you know? And then working with Rey when I got called up to the main roster, the Straight Edge Society stuff especially, you can compare and contrast CM Punks from those two different time periods and getting to work with Rey so frequently really felt like a level up, because that was like my litmus test. I could use Rey as a comparison. Like okay, I was here when I worked Rey last time. Now I’m here and then being trusted enough to work with John Cena pretty much every day, every night for quite some time. We were married to each other and it was always a night off and it was always easy and when you’re tasked with working with the guy who pretty much is the engine that makes the company go at that point, it’s kind of just like, okay, I figured it out then. I was like, alright, I know. They trust me enough and I’m not gonna do anything stupid, I’m not gonna hurt the guy. It’s always good and it’s quality and it was fun and it was different and they trusted me to keep it different and it wasn’t the same thing all the time.
Before he left the stream, Punk reminded the audience that they’re on this journey with him.
This isn’t about me, this is about us. This is about everybody that’s behind me that for 10 years, didn’t forget, chanted my name so, I’m gonna put the boots back on for all y’all and we’re gonna go on this journey together.
After his in-ring return at the holiday house shows, Punk is headed towards to the 2024 men’s Royal Rumble match. As of this writing, him and Cody Rhodes have declared for the bout.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Elite Comics11 with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
