Darren Young Recalls CM Punk Embracing Him After Coming Out

– In a new post on Sportskeeda, Darren Young told the story of CM Punk embracing him after he came out as gay.

On His First Encounter With Punk: My very first encounter with CM Punk goes way back to when he was my mentor on the original season of NXT, and there was a time he tried to get me to join The Straight Edge Society, too, which – for anyone who may not know – was a villainous alliance in WWE that first appeared on the SmackDown brand. The “Straight Edge” lifestyle was all about no smoking, no drinking, no drugs. Punk, then, was always a little rough around the edges and I felt he didn’t like me. We barely said anything to one another when we were working together.

I was somewhat new on the roster and, at the time, very nervous of my own shadow. I forget who Punk asked – maybe Tyson Kidd – but I know he asked a few wrestlers how I was as a talent, which is understandable because I’d want to know the details as to who I’d be mentoring as well if I were Punk!

On Punk Embracing Him: Fast forward to when I came out publicly to the world as the first openly gay WWE Superstar in the summer of 2013, CM – back after his brutal match with Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam – made it a point to literally embrace me in front of everybody watching the live feed in catering. Punk had just literally finished his match at SummerSlam match with Brock Lesnar, iced up from head to toe, when he made it a point to come up to me in the catering area and told me to stand up and give him a hug.

He said, “I’m very proud of you for coming out and being so courageous. If you have any problem with anyone in the locker room you let me know and I’ll take care of it.” I was shocked! Here he’d just finished his match with Brock Lesnar and yet was being thoughtful enough to come up to me and show me love like that was something that completely caught me off guard in a huge way. With Punk embracing me in a manner like that, it made it that much easier for me to walk into a WWE locker room and just be myself. It’s a moment I’ll never forget and I’ll always share with the world.