Triple H Details How He Approached WWE Return Talks With CM Punk
Triple H knew how to talk to CM Punk when it was time to convince the former WWE Champion to return to the company.
When CM Punk returned to WWE at Survivor Series 2023 in Chicago after nearly a decade away from the company, it shocked a lot of people in the wrestling world. Punk’s WWE departure in January 2014 was a bitter one that led to him complaining about the company a lot over the years.
After a two-year run in AEW that ended when Punk got fired for a backstage fight with Jack Perry, Punk was free to go anywhere he wanted.
It has been revealed that WWE’s Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque and WWE President Nick Khan reached out to Punk about a return to the company. A deal was agreed upon on the day of Survivor Series, Punk signed the deal at the show and appeared on camera at the end of the night.
Over the last 15 years, Triple H has been a catalyst in bringing back some huge names to WWE like Hall of Famers such as Bruno Sammartino and The Ultimate Warrior, both of who had rocky relationships with former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Due to Triple H reaching out to them, both of them returned to the company and were celebrated for their pasts as former WWE World Champions.
In an interview with the SI Media Podcast with Jimmy Traina, Triple H talked about how he would be open to talking to anybody about coming back to WWE, no matter who it was.
“There are people out there where, because of things they did where you just can’t get outside of the scope of ‘that would be a negative. No matter how you cut it, it would be a negative,’ but I would always be open to the conversation, no matter who it was. When Punk and I were having these conversations with Nick and going through this, when we first got on the phone, one of the things I said was, ‘I want to clear the air. I’m not the same guy I was 10-15 years ago.’
‘If I was, I wasted 10-15 years of my life. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. I have a different point of view. I would believe you’re not the same person you were 10 years ago and that you have changed. Let’s both assume that and then wipe everything else, bad thoughts, whether real or imagined, let’s get rid of them and say these are two different people that are going to talk about doing business together.
‘How can we approach that in a way that is just, let’s talk about it. If we find that we don’t have a common goal, no worries, that’s just business. If we do, wonderful, let’s do something big together.’”
Triple H Believes Everybody Can Change
The discussion continued with Triple H talking about how everybody changes as they get older and experience different things in life.
“Everybody changes, everybody grows, everybody moves on, whether positive or negative, and things people did in the past or bad blood can be overcome for the right reasons. I believe that now, I believed that years ago when I was talking to Bruno. I believed it when I was talking to Warrior.
All these people that, over time, people told me, when I first went to Vince and said, ‘I want to talk to Bruno,’ he said, ‘If you want to waste your time, go ahead. It’s never going to happen.’ It took me two and a half years, but we got there. I believe those conversations can happen and people can change. I will never say never, but we’ll have to see.”
Triple H opened up the first WWE Raw episode on Netflix this past Monday while CM Punk closed the show with a big win over Seth Rollins in the main event.