The latest episode of Colt Cobana’s Art of Wrestling podcast was given to CM Punk to explain his story and reasons behind why he left WWE. First, it’s only common sense to point out that this is HIS point of view on the situations he’s talked about and we, as an audience, will probably never hear WWE’s side of things properly because it probably wouldn’t be, as they say, best for business. However, this doesn’t mean that everything Punk says is a lie or an exaggeration. With risk of sounding like a “fanboy” I’m quite inclined to believe the majority of Punk’s story because he never mentions anything that is either unbelievable or that Punk would have to gain by lying. Also, if WWE did release their version of events for some reason, it would be equally as unreliable, if not more because we all know that they love their own revisionist history. For example, that Bret was going to take the WWF championship onto Nitro the night after Survivor Series. And, that the arena was filled with Austin 3:16 signs the night after his famous KOTR promo, as if Austin was made a star overnight.
(I’d like to add that this won’t be written chronologically in terms of what Punk said in the interview)
Anyway, earliest in the podcast Punk mentions about how unhappy and miserable he was at the end of his run in WWE. Now, personally, my opinion may differ to others on this part because a lot of people (and perhaps rightly, this is only opinions after all) have suggested that he should have adhered to his contract which I do understand and partly agree with because any “normal” job, Punk wouldn’t have his “star power” to help him. However, I think I’m most inclined to support Punk at this point because I’m personally a big believer in if something makes you genuinely miserable, then you should change it and make yourself happier. It’s also at this point I’d like to throw in that Punk wasn’t in any feuds at the time of his leaving and although plans were to be altered without him there, it’s not as if he just left someone else to flounder.
Throughout the podcast Punk does bring up points about having to put Brock, Taker and Rock over all in the same year. Punk’s argument here is that he’s the guy that is going to be there at RAW the next night wrestling and having nothing to do while these part-time guys are off home and don’t have to worry about it. Although, here Punk does have a valid point, after the programmes with these guys, he was left for the most part to feud in the mid card which never really lived up to what he could have done if he’d went over one of them. For instance, from having a match against Brock at Summer slam, Punk feuded with Ryback after and even after the Taker feud, he was left to feud with Jericho (no offence to Jericho, but he’s hardly the main event talent he once was). In my opinion, all of these booking decisions by WWE were probably right for the time, Rock going over Punk at the Rumble was to build for the Wrestlemania main event so Rock could have the title. Punk even counters this point in the podcast and argues that Wrestlemania sells itself and although that is true for many people, the Solomonster pointed out on episode 356 that the buy rates would argue against Punk statements as he recalled the buy rates which were higher with The Rock on the card than they had the year before. So, in this aspect, you can argue that Punk is exaggerating, or wanting this to be true so he feels more acceptance of not reaching the main event of Wrestlemania. Punk’s criticisms of him losing to Taker seem to me a bit unfair because the Undertaker’s streak match has become a draw for Wrestlemania for the fans so for Punk to win that would be probably a bit absurd if Taker could continue to wrestle after. Last of all was his criticisms of Lesnar which again, although the guy is part-time, it was necessary to make Lesnar look legit after his loss to HHH at Mania. However, this brings us to the part that Punk argued which I 100% agree with and that is his criticisms of having to put HHH over 3 years ago. Even today, it seems like a bad idea as nothing has come from it and the story itself didn’t really make sense from business perspective, bringing HHH out of retirement only to beat CM Punk and then retire again is madness and I can only imagine that HHH had politicked his way to this feud backstage, so in this regard I think Punk has a credible argument.
Another thing Punk criticises in his WWE run is that he had to work with Ryback after Lesnar. At this point in the podcast Punk refers to Ryback as “The Steroid Guy”. He references that Ryback hurt him in their first feud and recalls a story about the episode of RAW when Ryback military press slammed Punk through a table and Punk was slammed onto the edge of the table and then landed on the concrete. First of all, I’m not a health specialist but I think it’s pretty obvious that Ryback is on steroids, The Big Guy is huge after all. Also, I love Ryback as a character but I think we can all also agree that he’s not the safest in-ring competitor and Punk recounts him being injured off Ryback numerous times. Further than the military press, Punk alleges that Ryback broke Punk’s ribs with a kick in their feud a year prior. It has to be said really that these things aren’t something Punk would probably lie about because there is nothing to gain from it.
Perhaps, the most horrifying thing to take away from the full podcast was Punk’s encounters with the WWE doctors. He notes times where he had been cleared for a knee injury over the phone, I’m not a doctor but the idea of clearing someone over the phone for a knee injury is simply ridiculous. He then mentions the Royal Rumble match where Kofi gave him a clothesline leading to what he thought was a concussion. He recounts in some what a humorous way because the Doctor just looked at him at ringside and asked what Punk wanted to do but when you think of how much impact concussions can have these days it really is scary. He then goes on to say that he passed their concussion test (even though he knew he had a concussion) and then is asked to ‘run the ropes to make sure’ which again is ridiculous and even he laughs at this and points out it shows you that the test itself is unreliable. Now, this concussion issue takes us into the question of how much does WWE really care about their employees? If this was another sport like the NFL, the guy would have been took straight out of the Royal Rumble match against his choice but we seem to have WWE encouraging the guy to work while injured and even as so far as the doctors. To me, in my opinion this is shocking as WWE’s priority should be the health of their wrestlers rather than whether they can still make money with the injury. It seems that they forget that Punk and the rest of the roster have to go home to their families and will eventually one day retire from wrestling and would like to do so in as much health as they can.
If the concussions wasn’t enough, Punk recounts a problem he had with, what was later diagnosed as a Staph Infection in his lower back. According to Punk, the WWE doctors first claimed the lump was just a “fatty deposit” and gave him anti-biotic’s to try and get rid of it but they weren’t medication suited for dealing with Staph infections so Punk was reaping none of the benefits of the medication and all of the side effects, even leading to him defecating in the middle of a Smackdown show. He recounts the side effects leaving him dry-heaving or vomiting after a match leaving him on his hands and knees. Leading up to Punk leaving, he’d asked multiple times for the WWE doctor to remove the lump and cut it out but each time the doctor refused because Punk would need a stitch. This appears to be the last straw and the main build up to Punk leaving WWE. After leaving Punk would go to a different doctor and found out that it was a Staph Infection and not simply a “fatty deposit”. Further, shocking is that Punk claims the doctor said that he could have died because of it which really shows the lack of professionalism in the WWE health system. Now, as I’ve said before, in my opinion the health of WWE’s wrestlers should be the main concern from WWE officials but to misdiagnose something so serious is really concerning on whether the doctors truly deserve to be working there and if they do deserve it then it leads to the staff just being too lazy to deal with Punk’s injury. On any level this is concerning and unprofessional but also makes you wonder how many other health problems go unnoticed? How many times do wrestlers still work with concussions? How many of the wrestlers currently are being treated with the wrong medication?
This article isn’t about bashing WWE by any means but a part from the really alarming health issues, there’s also the fact that WWE ‘fedexed’ Punk his termination papers on the day of his wedding which to me, can only be described as a ‘dick move’. It seems that this is just WWE trying to have some sort of malicious attack on Punk and ruin his wedding day all because he wanted time off. Punk notes throughout the full podcast that he’d asked several times for a lengthy time off to heal up but was never granted as long as he’d have liked. Perhaps, most notable was his break in 2013 after Wrestlemania when he came back for Payback just so WWE could sell the stadium out instead of healing completely and returning at Summerslam. I just feel like this podcast has truly shown how little WWE care about their talent for any more than just making money and as soon as you can’t do that they seem to throw you aside. You can argue that Punk left against his contract but as he points out, he is an independent contractor which means that he’s not breaching any contract although that leads into a completely different debate which I won’t cover here.
Although not directly to do with Punk leaving, he did confirm that the main event for Wrestlemania 30 was supposed to a singles match between Randy Orton and Batista which really does show how much WWE want to control who the audience likes and makes it no surprise that Bryan’s title run (although shortened by injury) was really disappointing, feuds with Kane at this point are irrelevant because the guy NEVER wins a match and he’s been in the company for 15 years. It really does baffle me that WWE was ever going to consider just having that as the main event for Mania. Especially when the whole story that they’d played out in the Summer that year would only have been right if Bryan won the title, I suppose in some way you have to give WWE credit for not being as stubborn as people would have thought and to actually change it but it really does leave you thinking of how much of a shambles that Wrestlemania would have been. It confuses me as I’m writing about it as to why they ever thought that was going to work.
Another thing which Punk suggested was that WWE doesn’t care about storylines for anyone else other than John Cena which again, although obvious off of what we see every Monday night, it’s still slightly impactful to hear someone come out and say it. This offers a good explanation of why it seems to be rare to have a mid card feud that is in-depth without a championship on the line for it. Punk further points out that WWE focus on Cena’s make-a-wish a lot more than any of the other guys on the roster which seems to be a pretty credible argument. The most recent wrestler to do a make-a-wish was Daniel Bryan with Connor the Crusher but even then, they only publicised that one case of Bryan’s when it’s clear that he does a lot more than that.
This article is becoming A LOT longer than I thought it was going to be so I’ll leave you with some of my overall thoughts on Punk leaving. First, I fully understand why he left and to a point I’m in full support (without sounding like a fanboy). Second, I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that Punk sounds bitter throughout the podcast, similar to Bret Hart but I think it’s okay for him to be bitter at this point considering all that’s happened and in my opinion is completely different to why Bret Hart was bitter (maybe we’ll get onto that at some point). Moreover, although some parts may be exaggerated throughout the podcast, I believe that Punk believes what he’s saying to be correct. In my opinion, he hasn’t fabricated stories to portray WWE in a negative light. And lastly, I think that if I was in Punk’s position, with the money and backing he has in crowd support, I’d probably leave too if the passion wasn’t there mixed with health problems.
Carl Maddison
@discuslariet - twitter.
