Former WWE Superstar CM Punk has broken his silence on the circumstances that led to his WWE departure in a lengthy interview with Colt Cabana on the Art of Wrestling Podcast.
There is a tremendous amount of material covered in the 2-hour podcast and we highly recommend you listen to the podcast to hear everything from Punk himself. We’re covering Punk’s final days in WWE below – but the podcast covers three years of Punk’s WWE run, dating back to Money in the Bank 2011
After years of working through injuries and WWE’s “toxic” creative environment, Punk requested a meeting with Vince McMahon and Triple H at the 2014 Royal Rumble.
“I looked Vince in the eye and I said, ‘I do not love this anymore. I’m f—– sick, I’m f—— hurt, I’m f—— confused, I don’t know as a business what we’re doing anymore. Every day you tell me it’s a team effort, but every day it’s an individual effort by me to find what’s necessary to even f-n come here. It’s not fun. I have zero passion for this. I’m concussed, I’m hurt, and alls you care about is what segment I’m in and how soon I can get my gear on and how soon I can pee in this cup and I don’t want to do it anymore.’
“I mentioned something about the piss test and Hunter said, ‘Well, you know, Dave (Batista) just took the same piss test you did.’ And I just looked at Hunter and went, ‘Well, did you?’ And he had nothing to say. I said (to McMahon), ‘Look, I thought when I re-signed three years ago I told you if I couldn’t be all that I said I could be, you could f—– fire me. And, if I was a fraud and anything less and fell short of the f—— mark – I said, ‘I sold more shirts than John Cena until I turned heel for you. You said you owed me one. I worked guys that were dangerous and you said you owed me one. I did all these things and alls I wanted was the main event of WrestleMania. And it’s fine if you don’t think that is me and I’m not the caliber of that Superstar, but then you need to f—— fire me. Because I do not want to be here and I do not want to be anything else.’ And then I will go somewhere else and get over because I can.
“You have shackled me, you have creatively stifled me, you have made this a very toxic environment, I no longer want to be here. It boggles my mind how Daniel Bryan has not figured into your plans to be in the main event of WrestleMania because this is his year. Just like two years ago when it was my year and I was white f—– hot, just like he is now, and what did you do? You fed me to this guy.’ And I pointed to right at Hunter. Vince was like, ‘This is the concussion talking. I can’t believe you’re saying any of this. It is a main event – you’re wrestling Triple H.”
“I politely turned to Hunter and I said, ‘With all due respect, I do not need to wrestle you. You need to wrestle me. I do not want to wrestle you. I seriously resent you for not putting me over three years ago when you should have. That would have been best for business. But, you had to come in and squash it. And then I had to lose to Truth and Miz. It didn’t make any business sense and now I’m in the position where I can tell you I don’t have to nor do I want to wrestle you at WrestleMania. I don’t care if I was supposed to win – which I was – I didn’t want to give him the f—— privilege.
“I said a lot of s— in there. I told them again – and Hunter was gritting his teeth, and he never liked me. Me and him in a room together – it was always negative vibes.”
“Hunter told me I was in the main event because I wrestled The Undertaker,” Punk continued. “I turned to him and said, ‘Tell me I got paid the same amount of money as you, Brock, Cena, Rock, or whoever.’ And once again, he had nothing to say. I was like, ‘I’m out of here.’ Vince, with tears in his eyes, went in for a hug, and it was like a reluctant patting on the back, then I looked at Hunter and he stuck his hand out and I shook his hand. I said, ‘Goodbye,’ and I walked out.”
Punk said he had not officially quit the company at this point, which is “when the story got really good.”
Vince McMahon texted him a week later and asked if he was ready to return yet, a sign that Vince really was not getting the message. Punk had been wrestling for months with a mass on his back that he says WWE doctors refused to properly diagnose. Punk went to a doctor that AJ Lee recommended who told him the mass was “a full-blown staph infection.” When Punk told the doctor that he worked with the mass on his back for three months, Punk said the doctor told him: “You should be dead. You could have died.”
Punk said Vince contacted him to tell him he’s suspended for two months, with the suspension ending the day after WrestleMania. After the two month suspension was up, nobody from WWE contacted him. The next thing he heard about it was Vince McMahon telling investors that he was “on a sabbatical” and then his royalty checks stopped coming.
The royalty check issue was the “final straw” after all he had put up with. Punk recalled getting a text from Triple H on June 11, two days before his wedding to AJ Lee. Punk said he explained his situation to Hunter – he was getting married, going on his honeymoon and they could continue the discussion when he got back. On the day of his wedding, he received a FedEx package with his termination papers.
“I was fired on my wedding day,” Punk said. That pushed him over the edge, especially clauses in the letter saying he forfeits all royalties and WWE claims a breach of contract retro-active to January.
Punk hired one of the top lawyers in Los Angeles to deal with the matter. Punk said he cannot talk about the terms of the settlement, but he “got everything I wanted and more.” He said WWE owes him an apology for calling him a quitter in his home town of Chicago.
Punk said WWE was terrified of him going to TNA, but Punk’s lawyer told them that Punk “absolutely despises pro wrestling” and he’s “never going to wrestle again.”
“There is no working relationship, and there never will be ever again. That wedding day thing was pretty ridiculous”
