What CM Punk Was Worried About Early In WWE Career
For CM Punk, his ring name is not just a name; it’s his identity, and during the early stages of his career, he was afraid of losing it.
Speaking in an interview with Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson of Nightcap, The Second City Saint revealed that he got the name “CM Punk” when he started wrestling in his backyard at just 15 years old.
He added that older people used to call him a “little punk kid,” and instead of taking it as an insult, he wore it like a badge of honor:
“So when I went and got trained, like I was wrestling in a backyard when I was 15 years old, I was CM Punk. That’s always been your—because Punk was my nickname. You know what I mean? Like I was a little punk kid. You know the older parents, ‘you little punk,’ you know? And instead, to me, I was like how is that insulting? Like I wore that like a badge, right? I was proud of that.”
CM Punk Feared Losing His Wrestling Name Early in His Career
However, when CM Punk went pro, he feared that he would be forced to change his ring name, which was a big part of his identity. Fortunately, neither on the independent scene nor in WWE was he asked to drop the “CM Punk” name, which has now become one of the most popular ring names in the wrestling world:
“But when it came time to quote unquote go pro, you know, I find a training school, I get brought in the right way, broken in. And I’m trying to come up with a cool code name, you know what I mean? And my trainers looked at me, and they’re like, ‘What are you doing? You’re Punk. Just be Punk,’ right? And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ I thought maybe I had to kind of leave that behind.”
“And then when I signed with WWE, I thought for sure that’s it. They’re going to change it. Because we do that sometimes. We changed people’s names, and I thought I was going to be an astronaut, or you know what I’m saying, like I don’t know what they were going to do with me. And somehow, I made it to television as CM Punk. You know, like I’m just fortunate that way, I suppose.”
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