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CM Punk Reveals Unlikely Role In Jesse Ventura’s WWE Return

By Lyle Kilbane • Published 1st August 2024
CM Punk Jesse Ventura

Following Jesse Ventura’s surprise return to WWE, CM Punk has discussed meeting the legend and thinks his own comeback played a role in the Governor’s.

Jesse Ventura rose to fame as a wrestler in the 1970s before moving to the WWF at the start of the following decade. However, the veteran is best known for his commentary alongside Gorilla Monsoon and Vince McMahon in the wake of his retirement.

Ventura famously clashed with McMahon over royalties after being led to believe that only featured performers on WWE videotapes earned royalties back in 1987. In 1991, Ventura brought legal action against Titan Sports — the WWE’s parent company at the time, and eventually won.

The star went on to enjoy further success in Hollywood and as a politician, becoming Governor of Minnesota in 1999 before briefly returning to WWE in the same year. Ventura was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004 and made his most recent appearance for the company in 2009.

But Jesse Ventura was welcomed back to the family when Raw was held in St. Paul, Minnesota with Triple H delighted to greet the WWE Hall of Famer.

CM Punk Thrilled With Jesse Ventura Meeting

Speaking on the SI Media podcast, CM Punk detailed his meeting with Ventura and while he stopped short of taking credit for Ventura’s shock return to WWE, he thinks his own return might have played a part:

I saw Governor Ventura the other day. Absolutely 100 per cent blown away. One of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me in my life is he tells me that he saw I came back — and he said, ‘The place must have changed. If Punk’s back, I’ll go back.’

I can’t take credit for it, but I think a guy like me being back I think speaks volumes. Obviously it does.

CM Punk infamously walked out of WWE in 2014 but following his firing from AEW in 2023 which brought his ill-fated time in Tony Khan’s company to an end, hell froze over when Punk made his shock WWE return at the end of the 2023 Survivor Series in his home city of Chicago.