CM Punk has spilled the beans on his WWE return.
The former AEW Champion returned to the company for the first time in nearly a decade at Survivor Series 2023. This was just months after being fired by AEW for a fight backstage with Jack Perry at Wembley Stadium.
His return was one of the biggest in years, and came about at the last minute between CM Punk and Nick Khan. CM Punk appeared on the first episode of No-Contest Wrestling and spoke about his return to the WWE last year. Punk didn’t go right to WWE, but rather thought he might be done with pro wrestling again.
WWE reached out to CM Punk in November
“When I exited AEW, I definitely wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I’m going to WWE’. I probably did think, ‘Okay, I was done.’ And then, you know, because that happened in August or September, and then I’m just kind of chilling. Then Nick Khan calls me in November. He’s like, ‘When are you free and clear?’. And I was like, ‘Nick, I don’t know if you heard, I was fired.’. He’s like, ‘Oh no, no, I know.’ He goes, ‘Certainly, you’re not telling me that there’s not an—’ and then he just stopped himself and went, ‘Okay, we want to talk to you about coming back.'”
“I’m on my way to the gym, and I’m flying to Atlantic City the next day for a CFFC show where I do commentary. So, I told him, ‘You know, sometime next week, shoot me some times and we’ll talk.’ And the wheels just started in motion. You’re on the phone with them. Somebody says something about Survivor Series being in Chicago, and you go, ‘Oh… what? We can’t get a deal done in that amount of time, but that’s the spot. How eager are both sides to realize it?'”
CM Punk Didn’t Want The Typical Royal Rumble Return
CM Punk continued, revealing that WWE wanted him to return at the Royal Rumble. However, he saw that as too cliche, and instead wanted to come back at Survivor Series in Chicago instead.
“When we first started talking, it was just like, ‘Okay, you know, the typical Rumble. You come back for the Rumble.’ But me being the creative that I am, I was immediately just like, ‘Yeah, I get it, but that’s what you do. That’s what you do with everybody. Everybody gets that.’ So then, it was a gift— Survivor Series in Chicago, just three days away. One of those three days is Thanksgiving, you know, not a business day—lawyers aren’t working. So, the lawyers had to work overtime in 48 hours.”
