CM Punk on Chance His WWE Return Would Not Have Happened & Misunderstanding with Paul Levesque Over His Return Entrance

A recent episode of the No-Contest Wrestling podcast featured CM Punk as the guest. One of the topics discussed included CM Punk’s thoughts about the potential his return to WWE would not have happened had there been some “hard no’s” between the two sides for contract talks.

“So when I exit AEW, I definitely wasn’t like, ah, I’m gonna… I probably did think that, okay, I was done. Yeah, and then — because that happened in, I don’t know, August or September and then I’m just like kind of chilling and then Nick Khan calls me in November and he’s like, ‘When are you free and clear?’ And I was like, ‘Nick… I was fired.’ Very publicly (he laughed). ‘How do you not know?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I know.’ He goes, ‘Certainly, you’re not telling me that there’s not a –’ and then he just stopped himself and went, ‘Okay. Uh, we wanna talk to you about coming back,’ and then I was just like, I’m on my way to the gym and I’m flying. I think it was to Atlantic City the next day for a C.F.F.C. show where I do commentary and I was just like, ‘Shoot me times next week and we’ll get on the phone and we’ll talk’ and wheels just started in motion, and you’re on the phone with him and somebody says something about Survivor Series being in Chicago and you go, ‘Oh! Woah.’ We can’t get a deal done in that amount of time. But that’s the spot. That’s the spot. How eager are both sides to realize it? (I was) as eager as they were.

Me personally, I mean, there could have been (a chance that the return didn’t happen) if there was some hard no’s to some things in the contracts but again, I think both sides were eager. But then you get the lawyers involved and then, you know, it’s a lot. It’s a lot…”

Punk also gave his thoughts about a backstage incident he had with WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque over a misunderstanding regarding his return entrance to the company at Survivor Series WarGames 2023.

“I remember being in Gorilla (at Survivor Series 2023) and all of a sudden, I get bear-hugged from behind and like, as I kind of turn around to see who it is, it’s Bayley, and she’s like, ‘I f*cking knew it!!!’ She’s like, ‘As soon as they started yelling at us to clear the hallway,’ she’s like, ‘I knew it!!!’ And she’s not letting go of me and then, Triple H is there. Stephanie (McMahon), I remember seeing her and having a moment with. There’s somebody I haven’t seen in 10 years. There’s somebody people are like, ‘Oh, they hate each other.’ (William) Regal, I remember looking at Regal and Regal going (look at us)… But there was just so many people there, and then, I don’t know what to do. I absolutely lose my composure (because) alls I know is I’m coming out. But, I don’t know what the set looks like, I don’t know if there’s a ramp. I’m literally in the dark, and so I’m trying to talk to Triple H over the table, and it’s so loud and there’s so many people and they hit my music and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I doing?’ And he’s like, ‘Go out and walk down to the cage.’ And I’m like, ‘Go out and walk all the way down to the cage!?’ And he was trying to tell me that there was two cages for the babyfaces and the heels for WarGames and he wanted me to walk down and stand in-between there. So in my head, I’m like, I’m marching all the way to the cage and he’s like, ‘No!’ My music’s playing, and we’re going back-and-forth and I’m like, we’re both freaking out. He went, ‘No!’ And he rips his headset off and I’m like, ‘Oh God! What are we doing!?’ Obviously, we figured it out… The chaos backstage, brother. I mean, it’s the last minute… There’s so much stuff going on back there and they film everything now so I’m sure someday we’re gonna see a lot of cool stuff. It was just such a great moment and I love that chaos and that uncertainty again. I was like, man, I could just drink it up all day.”

Punk also gave his thoughts about his reaction when he made his return appearance in WWE.

“And I walk out there (at Survivor Series 2023) and then when I appear, again, I was like, oh, that’s loud. I can’t hear the song and then when I appear and it got to another decibel level and I was just like, I have never experienced anything like this in my entire life. I felt like I was inside of a jet engine, because it wasn’t anything discernable. I couldn’t close my eyes and be like, yeah, that’s a crowd of 16,000 people losing their mind. It was just white noise. It was just noise. One of the, if not the, hard to argue that it isn’t, the number one moment of my career. I wanna run through a brick wall right now.”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com