CM Punk Expects The Rock & Cody Rhodes’ Storyline to Eventually Impact Him

– Speaking to The Daily Mail’s Alex McCarthy, WWE Superstar CM Punk spoke about how The Rock’s current storyline with Cody Rhodes might impact him on the road to WrestleMania. Below are some highlights from the Daily Mail and Fightful:

CM Punk on how The Rock’s storyline with Cody Rhodes will impact him: “I’m sure it will. I’m sure it’s going to trickle down and impact everybody. I think one of the difficult parts of this being so big, there’s so many moving parts. You’re seeing it with [John] Cena now. Definitely, I have a different perspective on it now than I did 10 years ago when I was working with The Rock. It’s easy for everybody to say, ‘You’re not here, we’re grinding, we’re doing this.’ The schedule now is so much more limited than it was 10 years ago. I can’t point a finger at anybody else and say, ‘Well, you’re not here.’ A guy like John Cena, he’s a busy dude. He’s earned that right. He’s stated that he’s retiring, this is going to be his final run, so I’m less inclined to say, ‘You should be here doing this, doing that.’ Sometimes the tickets sell themselves when we’re in these international markets nd you hear John Cena retirement tour, that’s going to put butts on seats.’

On John Cena not needing to be on TV every week: “John Cena doesn’t necessarily need to show up every week. He’s busy, he’s filming a movie. I understand that, but there is a flip side to that coin. There is still a locker room full of pro wrestlers. They are the people that will get a chip on their shoulder and there will be resentment because there are people that feel, ‘Oh, I’m here every week. I’m doing this, I’m doing this.’ But at the end of the day, I think everybody just constantly wants to rise to the level. So along the way, yeah, we’re going to poke, we’re going to prod, we’re going to say, ‘Hey, Rock, you showed up here, how come you’re not here? Why aren’t you doing this?’ I think the fans do that too, and I think they enjoy it when they see us do it.”

His thoughts on the Final Boss: “There’s no denying what a giant box office star The Rock is. I think peeling back a little bit and being Final Boss instead of happy go lucky Rock, I think that is a character that can say, ‘Yeah, I’m not here all the time. So what? I’ll show up for eight minutes every six months and it’ll still be the biggest thing.’ I think there’s freedom and there’s an air to play with that a little bit, and it makes it better and more real and more exciting for everybody.”

On wanting to headline WrestleMania: “I’ll main event WrestleMania one day.”

On how goals change: “Sure, but I also think that the things that I may have said or did 10, 12 years ago, I think there’s a lot of fans that have held onto that say more than I have. I think there’s a lot of things that are less important to me in 2025. So yeah, sometimes I’m like, well, it’s really not that big of a deal. Main eventing WrestleMania has always been a goal of mine. But goals change. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to wrestle in the main event of WrestleMania, but I’m at the stage of my career now where I’m like, ‘Oh, okay. So this person’s gonna main event? Alright, well. You’re not gonna be able to follow this, so I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll go first and I’ll shower, and I’ll eat some doughnuts, and I’ll watch whatever you call a main event, and I’ll just go, ‘Well, yeah, all right. I was right. They couldn’t follow it.'”

CM Punk is set for action later tonight at WWE Elimination Chamber Toronto. He’ll be competing in the men’s Chamber match against Drew McIntyre, Damian Priest, Seth Rollins, Logan Paul, and John Cena. The winner will go on to challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 41.

WWE Elimination Chamber Toronto is scheduled for later tonight at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It will be broadcast live on Peacock in the US and on Netflix internationally.