I think once I was free and clear, I think that's when you can begin to heal from all of that. Honestly, it's what eventually happened. In spring , Khan and Punk started to talk more, and got closer. Khan had no intention of signing Punk and bringing him back with no fans in attendance, so it allowed for what he described as a "low-pressure friendship.
I talked to him a lot. He was watching the shows and enjoying them. He liked a lot of the young wrestlers who were becoming breakout stars on AEW Dynamite.
Punk said he wasn't sure if he would have returned sooner if not for the pandemic. He joked in the virtual media scrum after his return that he needed to be wined and dined by AEW.
I'm pretty guarded and I'm pretty private. So I was just kind of keeping an eye on it and I wanted to see how it was going to turn out. One of the things that impressed Punk most about AEW was how the promotion and talent dealt with the death of one of its wrestlers, Brodie Lee, last December. Punk said this week on ESPN's SportsNation that he was "blown away" the locker room was tight-knit enough not to leak the news.
It gave him the hope that maybe AEW would be different from his past experiences. Meanwhile, Punk said WWE had been reaching out to him about a return as well, through intermediaries.
Punk said he did listen to overtures, but they never really got off the ground. Some things never change. When you enter a conversation with people you have a past with and you know who they are, how seriously can you take it? I know exactly who they are and they just continue to prove it. I'm trying to be as diplomatic as I possibly can. ON FEB. Punk listed five young AEW stars, including Allin. Khan texted him, saying he liked his list.
That wasn't that hard to figure out. Him wanting to wrestle for AEW was the biggest thing we had to establish. Once we had that established, we all wanted the same stuff. Punk said in an interview last year that he would need a fun story to tell and "the stupidest amount of money" to come back. Punk said he's happy with his AEW contract, adding that LeBron James loves basketball, but "he ain't showing up unless you pay that motherfer, right?
Or I would have been at the Royal Rumble. Everybody is different. Every situation is different. There's some people that don't like me, so all they're going to hear is 'Oh, he's just doing it for the money.
Does it matter why I'm doing it? Do you really care? If you don't like me, don't watch. It's a perfect storm.
It's a lot of everything. It's the money, it's the freedom. It's the creative, and it's the possibility of working with young, talented people that excite me. A feud with Heyman led Punk to battle Lesnar. Punk was excited about working with both The Beast Incarnate and his advocate.
Scheduled to lose to another part-timer, Punk thought, "So I've gotta put over The Rock and he goes away, I've gotta put over 'Taker and he goes away, and now I'm putting over Brock and he goes away.
Again, McMahon promised that if he did this, he would owe Punk. To The Best in the World, that meant the goal of headlining was still alive. The beginning of that interaction saw The Big Guy add to Punk's collection of injuries. Ryback powerbombed Punk onto a table, but the crash didn't go as planned.
Punk fell on the edge of it before tumbling onto the concrete. Suffering from broken ribs which Punk blames on Ryback and concussion symptoms, Punk struggled to work. He tells stories of himself on all fours, vomiting after a match.
The WWE medical staff treated him with a conveyor belt of antibiotics. Punk says that led him to soil himself in the middle of in-ring action on SmackDown. Little did we know it, but Punk offered hints that he was going to leave. He talked about how injured he was, saying, "Some days I feel so beat up, I don't know if I can put my boots on.
He told himself, "I'm going to change their minds. I'm going to have this awesome Royal Rumble, and they're going to be like, 'Goddamn, all right, Punk needs to be in the main event. He hasn't been in the main event. He entered the man battle first. During his nearly 50 minutes in that match, he suffered a concussion. The injury sent him into the corner, hurt, confused, his head spinning. He told the ringside doctor about the concussion, and Punk says the doc simply said, "W hat do you want me to do?
Kane eventually came down to the ring, pulled Punk out of the match early and threw him, concussed and all, into the announce table. Punk quit. In a closed-door meeting, he told Triple H and McMahon, "You have shackled me, you have creatively stifled me, you have made this a very toxic environment, I no longer want to be here. One could only go on rumors and what outlets like TMZ reported , which pointed to Batista's being in WrestleMania as a key reason for Punk's departure. McMahon didn't give up hope that he could talk Punk into coming back.
When Raw came to Chicago, the Internet buzzed with reports stating that Punk was on his way back. He talked briefly about how not being able to beat Undertaker drove him away before starting the selling process on Lesnar's shot at The Phenom. The show went on. The machine kept humming. Triple H reached out to Punk via text. Punk says he told him, "Send me my royalties that I've been asking about for two months.
That is reasonable, and then I will talk to you when I get back from my honeymoon. This is the day he received his walking papers from WWE to go along with his ring.
McMahon would later say in an interview with Steve Austin on the WWE Network subscription required that the timing was the result of a mix-up.
Punk believes otherwise. I used to be able to reach out to him. I think he's just cut off all communication with people from the business. With no statement from Punk or WWE yet, it was Punk's former manager who provided insight into what triggered his walking away. He had enough. He couldn't take it anymore, and it wasn't a slow build. They appreciated the craft and the work that went into it. People who love wrestling appreciate someone else who loves wrestling.
Other companies tried, but their product always felt a tier below WWE. It has the spirit of Ring of Honor. Philadelphia will be no different. It means something to me now because it was validation. On the other hand, if this is scripted and the whole thing was a work, say Punk was given license to say what he wants, then this is a piece of creative genius. If so, then the WWE has achieved its goal of gaining interest in its product because just look at any Pro Wrestling website right now!
WWE will achieve a ratings hike just when they need it and garner interest and generate PPV buys which are currently slumping to desperate lows. They're also doing the perfect thing by getting to believe it's real to everyone by removing Punk's profile from the website and not showing any highlight packages of his rant. Regardless, the ending to this week's Raw was one of the most astonishing and gripping moments in wrestling television history.
Every word was digested by every viewer. This next week, I will not be reading any spoilers and will be tuning in more keenly than ever before.
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