WWE Release Footage As CM Punk Reveals Why Company Banned Him

CM Punk is set for his first televised singles WWE match in well over ten years at SummerSlam but now a tryout match from 21 years ago has been unearthed.

CM Punk returned to WWE after almost ten years away at 2023’s Survivor Series. That shock move came just a few short weeks after Punk was fired by Tony Khan after yet another backstage fight. Since returning to WWE, Punk has competed at live events and in the 2024 men’s Royal Rumble where he suffered an injury that has kept him out of action for several months.

CM Punk will return to the ring at SummerSlam where he will look to put his incredibly personal feud with Drew McIntyre to bed. Those two men will be joined in the ring by Seth Rollins who has been appointed as the bout’s special guest referee.

But with more matches in his past than his future, WWE has taken a look back to one of CM Punk’s very first appearances in the company where he shared the ring with the legendary Road Warriors, Animal & Hawk.

CM Punk Banned From WWE?

The WWE Vault channel has released footage of that match where Punk teamed with Doug Delicious against the WWE Hall of Famers despite being banned for using a questionable move in his first tryout match, as Punk explained:

The night before we were in Philadelphia and I believe the Road Warriors were getting a quote-unquote tryout which is wild because they’re the Road Warriors, why wouldn’t you want them on your television show? They wrestled Goldust and Booker T on Raw in Philadelphia. I was in a dark match in Philadelphia against a gentleman from Chicago named Killer Kala Singh.

I hit him with this grapevine hammerlock DDT that I used to do, and it was immediately deemed dangerous. I was put on the banned list to never ever be brought back to WWE as an extra, for a dark match, or for anything. I was already booked for Baltimore the next night, so I went even though I was told in secret that I was banned but I went and I was a good little extra.

We were ringside and they’re trying to figure out who’s gonna wrestle the Road Warriors. There were just some big dudes that couldn’t do a front roll, one guy kept DDT-ing himself and they were just too awkward and weird. I remember Sgt. Slaughter walking up to me with his clipboard and he looked at me and goes ‘Hey kid how would you like to wrestle the Road Warriors tonight?’ And I said ‘Yes sir.’ This took place in Baltimore and I have never seen it, I just have memories of it.

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