wrestling / News
CM Punk Explains WWE Departure: Says WWE Fired Him, Blasts Triple H, Vince McMahon, Ryback, WWE Doctors, More
CM Punk was a guest on Colt Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast and went into detail about why he left WWE. The podcast is available at ColtCabana.com. Highlights of the appearance are below, but note that Punk went into extreme detail in describing his departure from WWE and everything that happened, so it’s well worth listening to.
– Punk said that he never quit WWE, but that he was fired. Punk left WWE in January. A few weeks after that, Vince McMahon informed him via text that he was suspended for two months. After the suspension ended, nobody from WWE ever contacted him. Punk eventually reached out to WWE about royalties he felt were owed to him, and said WWE gave him the run-around before eventually sending him termination papers. The papers said he was fired due to breaching his contract on his wedding day, so he was officially fired in June 2014. WWE decided to use his wedding in June 2014 as the reason for the breach, not his hiatus in January. Punk said WWE had taken things “too fucking far.”
– Regarding why he left WWE in January, he said it was due to his health. Punk said that during his final months in WWE, he worked with broken ribs, a concussion, and injured knees. Punk said he felt so sick during WWE’s November 2013 European tour that he was throwing up and dry heaving after every match he worked. Punk said WWE doctors kept giving him antibiotics and said they caused him to literally poop himself in the ring during a match he worked on Smackdown. Punk said it was the most sick he had ever felt in his life.
– Punk said he suffered a concussion during his match at the Royal Rumble but continued to work it anyway. He passed WWE’s concussion test the next day, saying that was “bullshit.” Punk told WWE to just admit he had a concussion, but they wanted him to do more tests. Punk said he told WWE to help him and finally went to Vince McMahon and Triple H directly, telling them he’s going home.
– Punk went off on Triple H, saying he ruined his momentum in 2011 and that he told Vince McMahon that Triple H was stifling his creativity. He also said he told Vince that they were screwing up by not putting Daniel Bryan in the WrestleMania main event and that they were going to pass him by.
– Punk went off on a WWE doctor named Chris Amann (we posted more info on Dr. Amann here). Punk says he found a lump on his back, which Amann said was just a fat deposit. Punk asked Amann to cut it out several times but Amann refused. The lump got bigger and turned purple and painful. Punk told Amann again before the Royal Rumble to cut it out, but Amann refused, saying Punk had to wrestle. After the match, Punk again told him to cut it out but Amann said if he did, he’d have to put Punk on antibiotics. After Punk left, he went to another doctor that AJ Lee found for him, and that doctor diagnosed the lump as a MERSA staph infection and immediately drained puss out of it. Punk said the doctor was stunned that he had been wrestling with the infection for months, and said Punk “should be dead.” Punk blasted WWE for misdiagnosing and ignoring his infection which he worked with for months.
– Punk blasted WWE for bringing him back so soon after injuries, saying WWE told him after multiple surgeries that he was being brought back right away. He said he sometimes wished for injuries and surgery just because he hoped it would give him some time off, but that WWE would just bring him right back despite injuries/surgeries.
– Punk said his WWE career was a failure since he never headlined WrestleMania. Punk said Vince McMahon was an “out of touch old man” and that he’d constantly hear how he wasn’t a draw, but that he’d always shove that down everyone’s throats. Punk said he worked the best match at WrestleMania 29 but knew he didn’t get as much money as John Cena, The Rock, Triple H, Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar got.
– Punk told a story about how Vince McMahon would often take his ideas and give them to other wrestlers. One example he gave was that he told Vince that he wanted to walk Chael Sonnen to the Octagon for his UFC fight in Chicago, but that Vince said no because he considered MMA “barbaric.” Weeks later, Triple H walked Floyd Mayweather to the ring before one of his boxing fights.
– He also said that at one point, he was being approached by major companies regarding sponsorships. He said he had a “big money” deal on the table and met with Vince about it and told Vince that it’d be good for business and draw new people to the product, but that Vince vetoed it right away, saying it would upset WWE’s TV sponsors as well as the other wrestlers. A year later, Punk said, Brock Lesnar had sponsors.
– Punk said he never held WWE up for money and did not walk out in the middle of a storyline, saying he left after being chokeslammed by Kane. He said he was frustrated by getting less and less money but that he went home due to his health and sanity. He also said he asked how WWE’s pay scale would change with the WWE Network but nobody ever would give him any answers.
– Punk said he hired a “vicious” lawyer to go after WWE, and got everything he wanted “and more.” He said he can’t talk about the specifics of the settlement, but that he got everything he wanted. He said WWE was scared that Punk would go to court over the independent contractor issue and ruin their way of business.
– Punk said he will never, ever have a working relationship with WWE again.
– Punk attacked WWE’s independent contractor setup and said if they really cared about the well-being of the wrestlers, they’d let the wrestlers form a union like the player unions in the NFL, NBA, etc. He said WWE’s concussion tests, for example, are self-serving and not in the interest of the wrestlers.
– Punk said he was supposed to star in 12 Rounds 2 but that when he told Triple H that the movie’s shooting dates overlapped with WWE’s European tour, Triple H announced the next day that Randy Orton would star in the movie.
– Punk said Triple H thinks he is a “piece of shit.”
– Punk called Ryback a “steroid guy” and said that wrestling him took 20 years off his life, resulted in broken ribs, and other injuries.
– Punk said WWE was worried he’d go to TNA, but that his lawyer told WWE that Punk despised wrestling now and would never wrestle again.
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