Roman Reigns Recalls Early Days With CM Punk, What ‘Irks’ Him Most About Punk

Roman Reigns touched on his animosity toward CM Punk and how it started back in their first days together in WWE. Punk and Reigns’ personal tension with each other has become the backbone of their feud leading into WrestleMania 42, with both men declaring how much they dislike each other in promo duels on Raw.

Reigns went into his issues with Punk in an interview with Michael Cole for WWE heading into the match. He recalled first being paried with Punk in The Shield and how things were cool for a week or two before he started to take it out on the group. He also was asked by Cole whether what irks him most is that Punk took his ball and went home, during which Reigns rose to the top of the company only to see Punk come back without doing what Reigns had done to get there. You can see the highlights below:

On His Early Days With Punk:

“Well, nothing drew me to Punk, let’s just be clear about that. I thought he was a nice guy at the time. We didn’t have all the information back then. He clearly didn’t have me in mind for that group. It was the higher powers at the time that inserted me. So yeah for like a week, maybe two, he was cool, very cool. Let us ride on his bus from one town to the other. We were training together.

“And then out of nowhere, you know — and this is a business. It is what it is. What goes between you and the office is between you and the office, but you don’t ever take it out on the boys. And he did what he always does. He put on that mask, he put on the shtick of being CM Punk. And then when times got tough, he took his ball and he went home. He ran.”

On If He’s Irked Punk Returned At the Top Without Going Through What He Did To Get There:

“No I mean, my journey’s my journey. His journey is his journey. I think what irks me the most is that I put in all that work to get us to a point to where we could move on from people like seeing CM Punk. That we could move on from people like John Cena, from The Rock. I put us to a point where we were so strong within our own full-time roster. And now I look around and it’s a retirement act here, it’s a retirement act there. Where we’re living off of this nostalgia of seeing CM Punk, and it’s not 2012. The magic and the mystique of him is gone. Now he’s just a regular guy.

“If I lived in a regular neighborhood in a regular house, he could be living right down the street from me. So that’s kind of what pisses me off the most, is that I put my soul into lifting this company up. And the people who were supposed to be able to carry that equity s**t the bed. That’s what irks me.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.