CM Punk’s Friend Recalls Important Conversation Before WWE Return
A close friend of CM Punk provided the Second City Saint with some vital information before Punk made his WWE return.
CM Punk made his triumphant return to World Wrestling Entertainment at Survivor Series 2023 in Punk’s hometown of Chicago. It was one of the loudest ovations in WWE history because the fans were stunned that Punk was back on WWE television for the first time in nearly ten years.
The reason Punk was able to sign with WWE is because he was fired by AEW in September 2023 after a backstage fight with Jack Perry at the All In PPV. It was the second year in a row that Punk had a backstage fight.
That first backstage fight that Punk had in AEW was when he was confronted by AEW EVPs The Young Bucks & Kenny Omega. Punk had former AEW Producer Ace Steel fighting beside him as the skirmish led to blows and even black eyes. There were also suspensions handed out while Steel lost his AEW job as well. The Bucks and Omega refused to work with Punk again.
Steel and Punk go back a long way since Steel helped train Punk to be a pro wrestler in the late 1990s and they have been close friends ever since. Steel spoke to Huge Pop Radio about how Punk was having a great time in WWE while also speaking about who Punk learned from in pro wrestling.
“He’s in a great place. He’s in a great place and you can see it. He’s enjoying everything that he’s doing. He came to my school just because he wanted to. He came back to, virtually, where he started. It’s not the same location, but the same grassroots where he came from.”
“When I asked him who he wanted to be in there with he said, ‘Bring your students. Bring me your people.’ I didn’t tell them he was coming. They were shocked as could be when they walked in. I just said, ‘Hey, we have extra practice this week. I think you guys should make it,’ so they came. Extra training day, they came in, and they were all stunned.”
“Coming back to professional wrestling, this is exactly the ideal situation. He has people that want to learn, he wants to teach. He wants to give them what was given to him. What was given to him by Eddie Guerrero. He has a different relationship with Harley (Race). Harley showed him how to make a blade. I never bladed for Harley. I told him, ‘No.’ If there were 50 people, I wasn’t doing it. He was making a blade and Harley showed him. Eddie took him under his wing. There is Harley. There is Raven. He had the opportunity to work all of these people. Dusty (Rhodes).”
Ace Steel Recalls What He Told CM Punk Before WWE Return
From 2019 to early 2022, Ace Steel worked for WWE as a coach at the company’s Performance Center. Due to that knowledge of what WWE was like in this new era, Steel was able to tell Punk about how WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque were very similar in their views about pro wrestling.
CM Punk and Triple H had butted heads in the past when both of them were wrestlers, but Triple H is in a different role now as the boss of the company from a creative perspective. Steel would go on to reveal what he told Punk about WWE life.
He’s in such a great place, and he wants to be the guy who gives back to basically all these kids who watched him growing up. He’s having the time of his life. This is what it should be. The company is what it should be. I told him this before he came back because I had a relationship with Hunter being at NXT because Hunter ran NXT.”
“I said, ‘[Hunter] came in every day and would shake my hand.’ I was sitting at the table. ‘How are you?’ ‘Hey. How are you?’ It wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to call him Sir.’ You know how it is being around Vince (McMahon). You’re on pins and needles. Hunter is not that way. He doesn’t run his ship that way.”
Before he (Punk) went back, I was like, ‘I think you guys are more alike than you probably would like to admit.’ He will now admit that because of the way they feel about this industry. Hunter said that, too. ‘We were exactly alike, just butting heads on a lot of different things.’ They are in tune and aligned to make this industry better.”
“Punk is loving all of it. When he comes to visit me and says, ‘The kids ask me to come down to the Performance Center.’ I said, ‘I know what you’re doing. I see you all the time. You’re having fun.’ This is what his return to wrestling was supposed to be. It’s what it was supposed to be. He’s changing in the locker room. He doesn’t want an extra locker room or to sit apart from everybody. He wants to be in the mix and answering questions. It’s great for him.”
“I said this before when he was out of wrestling, he loves wrestling. He loved wrestling more when we were traveling roads, maybe $40 or $50, and making long trips because that was it. Obviously, there is a lot more money on the line. The hardest part of this business is when it becomes a business for you. You have to watch it because you’ll lose all the love. You can end up hating things when it becomes a job. You have to tweak it so it’s not quite such a job.”
Next up for CM Punk is a likely Hell in a Cell match with Drew McIntyre in the main event of the WWE Bad Blood PLE in Atlanta on October 5th.