Further details about CM Punk’s return to WWE.
It is coming up on a full year since CM Punk made his return to WWE at Survivor Series. Present-day, Punk is heading into a Hell in a Cell match against Drew McIntyre at the Bad Blood Premium Live Event.
Going into the match, he sat down with O’Shea Jackson Jr. and T.J. Jefferson for the first recording of their No-Contest Wrestling podcast. In part one of their chat, Punk touched on his exit from All Elite Wrestling that ultimately led to him speaking with WWE President Nick Khan about returning to the company.
As far as the idea of the return not happening, Punk said that could have been the case if there were some ‘hard no’s’ in the contract details, but both sides were eager to get the deal done.
So when I exit AEW, I definitely wasn’t like, ah, I’m gonna… I probably did think that, okay, I was done. Yeah, and then — because that happened in, I don’t know, August or September and then I’m just like kind of chilling and then Nick Khan calls me in November and he’s like, ‘When are you free and clear?’ And I was like, ‘Nick… I was fired.’ Very publicly (he laughed). ‘How do you not know?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I know.’ He goes, ‘Certainly, you’re not telling me that there’s not a –’ and then he just stopped himself and went, ‘Okay. Uh, we wanna talk to you about coming back,’ and then I was just like, I’m on my way to the gym and I’m flying. I think it was to Atlantic City the next day for a C.F.F.C. show where I do commentary and I was just like, ‘Shoot me times next week and we’ll get on the phone and we’ll talk’ and wheels just started in motion, and you’re on the phone with him and somebody says something about Survivor Series being in Chicago and you go, ‘Oh! Woah.’ We can’t get a deal done in that amount of time. But that’s the spot. That’s the spot. How eager are both sides to realize it? (I was) as eager as they were.
Me personally, I mean, there could have been (a chance that the return didn’t happen) if there was some hard no’s to some things in the contracts but again, I think both sides were eager. But then you get the lawyers involved and then, you know, it’s a lot. It’s a lot…
After the contract details were sorted, he went to Gorilla Position and received a big hug from Bayley. She expressed that she knew Punk was showing up once the hallways started getting cleared out. Punk saw Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and Stephanie McMahon. He said the assumption from the public was that Stephanie and him hate each other.
He also saw William Regal and they had a ‘look at us’ moment. Punk received instructions for his entrance right before he went out. He was not aware of what the set looked like so he asked Levesque what to do and was told to walk to the cage. Punk thought he meant the WarGames cage, but Levesque was talking about the shark cages on the entrance stage. There was ‘chaos’ going on and it was loud so Punk was set on walking to the main cage but Levesque was trying to tell him not to do that.
I remember being in Gorilla (at Survivor Series 2023) and all of a sudden, I get bear-hugged from behind and like, as I kind of turn around to see who it is, it’s Bayley, and she’s like, ‘I f*cking knew it!!!’ She’s like, ‘As soon as they started yelling at us to clear the hallway,’ she’s like, ‘I knew it!!!’ And she’s not letting go of me and then, Triple H is there. Stephanie (McMahon), I remember seeing her and having a moment with. There’s somebody I haven’t seen in 10 years. There’s somebody people are like, ‘Oh, they hate each other.’ (William) Regal, I remember looking at Regal and Regal going (look at us)… But there was just so many people there, and then, I don’t know what to do. I absolutely lose my composure (because) alls I know is I’m coming out. But, I don’t know what the set looks like, I don’t know if there’s a ramp. I’m literally in the dark, and so I’m trying to talk to Triple H over the table, and it’s so loud and there’s so many people and they hit my music and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Go out and walk down to the cage.’ And I’m like, ‘Go out and walk all the way down to the cage!?’ And he was trying to tell me that there was two cages for the babyfaces and the heels for WarGames and he wanted me to walk down and stand in-between there. So in my head, I’m like, I’m marching all the way to the cage and he’s like, ‘No!’ My music’s playing, and we’re going back-and-forth and I’m like, we’re both freaking out. He went, ‘No!’ And he rips his headset off and I’m like, ‘Oh God! What are we doing!?’ Obviously, we figured it out… The chaos backstage, brother. I mean, it’s the last minute… There’s so much stuff going on back there and they film everything now so I’m sure someday we’re gonna see a lot of cool stuff. It was just such a great moment and I love that chaos and that uncertainty again. I was like, man, I could just drink it up all day.
While out in front of that crowd, Punk said it was white noise to him. He said it’s hard to argue with that being the best moment of his career.
And I walk out there (at Survivor Series 2023) and then when I appear, again, I was like, oh, that’s loud. I can’t hear the song and then when I appear and it got to another decibel level and I was just like, I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life. I felt like I was inside of a jet engine, because it wasn’t anything discernable. I couldn’t close my eyes and be like, yeah, that’s a crowd of 16,000 people losing their mind. It was just white noise. It was just noise. One of the, if not the, hard to argue that it isn’t, the number one moment of my career. I wanna run through a brick wall right now.
Circling back to Punk versus McIntyre inside Hell in a Cell, he dove into his approach to that match. He feels he has to deliver a classic, but wants to stay true to his beliefs about what a Hell in a Cell match should be and how it should be viewed.
I’m mentally prepared that I know what I have to do (for Hell in a Cell against Drew McIntyre), and it’s a high-pressure situation and I feel like I have to deliver a classic and I have to stay true to myself, my beliefs of what good wrestling is and that cell that I feel like as a company, we’ve gotten away from for so long, where it just became a toy. Like, oh, we’re just gonna have a pay-per-view called Hell in a Cell and everyone’s gonna go inside and have matches. When in reality, that should be presented as the most dangerous, diabolical thing that any wrestler would ever wanna do… But again, as a business, in a capitalist country, you get away with it. You get away from it. So, I want to bring it back to what it’s supposed to be. I don’t want to have a cell that needs a match. I want to have a match that needs the cell and I feel like me and Drew have done that. There’s no other way. There’s no other way to settle this. (O’Shea mentioned that what Punk & Drew have is the most vengeful thing going in WWE) Yes, yes. How do you settle that? You put ‘em in a cell. That’s it. Once the door closes, the door does not open. Two men enter, one man leaves. That’s it.
The upcoming match between Punk and McIntyre will be the third singles match of their program. McIntyre got the win at SummerSlam and Punk picked up his win at Bash in Berlin in a Strap match.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit No-Contest Wrestling with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
