Brian James speaks candidly about CM Punk.
It was nearly one month ago that CM Punk made his return to WWE at Survivor Series. Punk is now a member of the Monday Night Raw roster and this weekend, he’ll be making his in-ring return for the company against Dominik Mysterio as a part of their holiday live event tour.
The Senior Vice President of WWE live events is Brian ‘Road Dogg’ James and he further spoke about Punk’s comeback during a YouTube exclusive edition of the Oh…You Didn’t Know podcast. He detailed running into Punk backstage. James has made negative remarks about Punk on his podcast.
He ran into the five-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion in catering. They shook hands and for a moment, no words were spoken. James stated that Punk then shrugged his shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. James said he immediately felt like an ‘a-hole’ because he’s spoken negatively of Punk and Punk’s initial reaction to him was to embrace him.
James shared that he became emotional, adding that him and Punk ended up being around one another for five straight days after his return. He feels at peace about their relationship as it stands. James believes Punk had already put the past behind him and was not in his head like James was in his own.
I won’t go into the details (of me running into CM Punk backstage in WWE) but I will tell you that he and I, the first time I had saw him and he was sitting at a catering table and he and I met eyes and he stood up and we shook hands and we kind of didn’t say anything for a minute and then he literally — and I feel safe sharing this because I shared it with him face-to-face the following day how impactful it was. He literally shrugged his shoulders and went like, ‘Ah, come on’ and pulled me in and hugged me and… I’ll tell you the truth. It made me feel immediately like an a-hole, like I’m a piece of crap. It humbled me in myself if that makes sense (he laughed). I don’t know how else you can humble yourself but, it humbled me in a way where I thought, I have talked negatively about you and I thought negatively about you and then you embrace me and wow, you know what I mean? And look, it may not mean anything to anybody else, it may not mean a thing to you or to Dom (DeAngelo) or to anybody listening but to me, it meant a lot and truth be told, I almost started crying because it was a bit of an eye-opener about — I’ll tell you this; it immediately made me feel like no matter what the other person has done, no matter what other people have said or done or you thought they did or I thought they did or whatever. To have that in my head and heart, it’s only hurting me. It ain’t bothering him none, it ain’t bothering you (podcast co-host) any. It’s only in my head and heart and that’s negativity and it all drained out of me when he shrugged, like, ‘Aw, come on’ and it harkens me back to, ‘Brothers don’t shake hands. Brothers gotta hug’ and he pulled me in and we hugged dude and I don’t know man. It made me feel good for him to do that by the way. It made me feel really good but it made me immediately feel ashamed of my behavior. Not his behavior, not anything he’d done but it made me ashamed of my behavior and so, I don’t know. We then had a couple of — I believe God works in mysterious ways and he worked that weekend. Whether it touched anybody else’s life in the world. That weekend, it was all orchestrated. I was stuck in Stamford. Every bit of it was orchestrated to put me and Punk in certain situations and I hope he hears this because I think he’ll realize the depth of it because, I don’t know. We were just put together for like five days in a row, working and working together and speaking about the future and what he’ll be doing as far as what I do in my job and so, I don’t know man. It felt very much like, stop talking bad about people Brian. Stop thinking negatively about people, especially people you don’t really even know and just look at everybody through God’s eyes because that’s one thing I’ve been trying to do for me is look at myself through God’s eyes because I beat myself up a lot. But, if I’m gonna look at myself through God’s eyes, why wouldn’t I look at everybody else through the same vision? And I don’t know man. It just made me question — there was a lot of negative years that went on in my head that didn’t have to, and I got to re-rack that weight the other day and he helped me do that and so anyway, that’s my CM Punk story.
There was nothing mentioned, there was no words and in my mind and in my heart, there were none needed and look, this is my truth, my feelings, my whatever it is. It’s not for anybody else. I’m at peace now with me and him. My side of the street is clean now, I can sleep at night. But I believe his is too. What made me feel weird was I believe his was already (he laughed). Like, he wasn’t as inside his head about me, you know what I mean? And I get that, I get that because I am neurotic… It was all positive, all positive, super positive. Even in our working relationship, there was huge strides made and again, I’ll repeat, he has proven already that the needle will move, in many ways. So that’s that.
CM Punk is scheduled for house shows at The Kia Forum and Madison Square Garden this month. His latest Raw appearance saw him go face-to-face with WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. Head over to the POST Wrestling YouTube channel to hear John Pollock and Wai Ting’s reactions to the segment.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Oh…You Didn’t Know podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
