CM Punk Comments on What it Would Take to Wrestle for WWE or AEW, Why Wrestlers Won’t Form a Union, More

CM Punk is a former WWE Champion that was a guest on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast. Punk left WWE nearly seven years ago in January 2014 and a lot of fans are clamoring for Punk to return at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet at least in a ring. Punk was a co-host of WWE Backstage with Renee on Fox Sports 1 until the show was canceled this past June. Here are some interview highlights with thanks to WrestlingNewsco for the transcript.

CM Punk was asked about what it might take for him to wrestle in WWE or AEW in the future.

“I think the landscape currently is much different than when I left. You can play the game where if AEW was an option, would you have gone right after you left WWE? If you are going to play that game, there is no way they (WWE) would have handled it the way they handled it by suspending me for two months and nobody contacting me and the next thing you know, I got my release papers on my wedding day. There is no way that would have happened if there was an AEW. They probably would have approached me and said my suspension is up and asked if I am ready to go back to work.”

“Without wanting to insult anybody on either side of the fence, any WWE or AEW talent, it would take, above all, an interesting scenario. It would take a story that would be fun to tell and also the stupidest amount of money. But, they can save themselves a lot of money if they present a fun storyline. Now, what that is, I don’t know. I’m a pretty picky guy, especially at this point. There are more interesting people on the AEW side for me to wrestle and that’s because I’ve never wrestled them before. Young Bucks [and] Kenny Omega. Talking about your husband (Jon Moxley), I look at that and I go, ‘well, I wrestled him already,’ so it’s just less interesting than something new. And on the WWE side of things, I don’t know that there’s anybody there currently that I haven’t wrestled that I would be interested in wrestling.”

Here’s what CM Punk had to say about WWE wrestlers losing their Twitch accounts because WWE forced them and his story of a wrestler that lost a movie role because WWE wanted it to go to John Cena.

“This is where I will get controversial and piss a lot of people off. I don’t know Xavier Woods. I met him in Atlanta. He was doing a dark match one time. He was always a good wrestler but there wasn’t a character for him at that time. Obviously, he has become a pretty big superstar. He’s big on Twitch. He’s a big video gamer. I don’t know what’s going on with his Twitch channel so I don’t want to speak out of turn on that. I just saw he was petitioning to get a job with G4. Why is it ok for him to do that but Zelina Vega can’t have a Twitch? That was always my thing and people labeled me a complainer or whiny because I would always be the guy that would say, wait, why is so and so able to do this because there was always outside interest, not only from me.”

“I remember one particular person got a role-playing a wrestler because they knew somebody who was producing this television show for this certain channel. Then when it got shuffled to the office, all of a sudden, he couldn’t do it and the next thing you know, John Cena is doing it. They would literally take every single request that came through and funnel it to the one person that they wanted to be the face of the company. I went to a bachelor party for my buddy. We went to a pinball factory in Chicago where they make a lot of pinball games. We were there and the guy who was giving us the tour, the guy who owned the factory and the company, said he wanted me on the WrestleMania WWE pinball machine and they said no. I said, what do you mean no? They (WWE) said, don’t put this guy on it, we want this guy on it. Still to this day, I will hear stuff like that where they reached out and they had an offer for me and it never got back to me. THQ wanted me on the cover of their video game. I was forwarded the emails where WWE said, no, we want Sheamus, Miz, or John Cena. To their credit, Bryce, who was the head of all that stuff said, no, we want CM Punk as he is literally the guy right now.”

Renee chimed in with her thoughts on the subject as well.

“That is so infuriating. I’ve had so many people say that to me since I’ve left. They would say, “Oh, we pitched this for you. We wanted you to host a cooking show with wrestlers.” But they didn’t give it to me. They gave it to Bo Dallas. I love Bo Dallas, but f*ck, I could never catch a break. I couldn’t get anything done. I couldn’t even get a podcast off the ground. But, nope, you can’t do that.”

As for a wrestler union, CM Punk didn’t think that it was going to happen any time soon.

“No. It’s because there is no such thing as the boys. It’s a trope. You know, (they say), we are on the road and these people are our family. But, once you’re out of the bubble, you don’t hear from anybody anymore. Those people don’t pay your bills. There are always going to be a handful of people that will undercut everybody else just to get ahead a little bit. There seems to be a lot of people who not only by nature are boot lickers, but they love the taste. You’re supposed to lick the boot, not eat the entire thing.”

Those are just some highlights. The interview ran for nearly one hour.

Listen to the show your favorite podcast outlets or hit the play button below.

Here’s a clip from the show.