WWE: Big E credits his WrestleMania 40 Kickoff co-host CM Punk for launching his career

When Big E officially calls it a professional wrestling career, he's a borderline lock to become a WWE Hall of Famer.

A 12-time champion who has held singles gold at all levels in addition to being a member of arguably the most important trio in WWE history, even a potentially career-ending neck injury hasn't slowed down Big E's impact on the promotion, as he's become a willing brand ambassador, a part of their NIL initiative, and a willing talker who joined the WrestleMania 40 Kickoff panel alongside Michael Cole, Pat McAfee, and CM Punk, a performer he's wrestled on six occasions.

On paper, is Punk one of E's top career rivals? No, there are plenty of other performers who unquestionably rank higher on that list, but in Big E's opinion, expressed on the Sarah O'Connell Show, few foes have had as significant an impact on his professional wrestling career as, without the “Second City Saint,” he might not have had a professional wrestling career period.

“One singles matches I really couldn’t talk about for a long time, but now that he’s back, I can, is the match I had with Punk in 2013 was so important for me because, at that time, I was done with the Dolph Ziggler, I moved onto AJ’s bodyguard. I was done with that, and I was really floundering. I was in a position where I wasn’t really on TV much. I remember coming to work weekly, and I would look, they’d have the card up at a certain point in the day, you see all the matches, and you see, ‘Oh, you’re not on there.’ You talk to the producers, ‘Hey, do I have a backstage segment? Do I have anything today?’ Nothing. Do enough of that, and you realize, this is not going great. Especially because I’m not that established. My time on the main roster has been about me being a heater or a bodyguard. It’s always been about… I’ve never been the central focus at that time,” Big E told the Sarah O'Connell Show via Fightful.

“It was the start of the day, I believe it was Monday Night RAW. Once again, I was not booked, but I opened up my email, and at the time, they would email you your travel for the next week. I got me travel for the next week, and at the time, it was, we’d shoot RAW, we’d shoot SmackDown the next day. RAW was live, SmackDown was taped. A lot of the guys were being pushed to NXT, sent back down to developmental, or who were losing their jobs were guys who just did SmackDown. So pretty much when I saw, I got the email that you are needed for RAW, and you’re just doing SmackDown, it felt like, ‘Oh no, I need to do something right now, or I’m either going to be let go, or I’m gonna be sent back down to NXT, and who knows if I ever get an opportunity to be on the main roster again.' It was that same day, I get chills thinking about it, because if this didn’t happen, who knows where my career would be right now. It would have been done a decade ago.

“That day, I go to work, and I find out that I actually have a match with CM Punk. Sit down, talk about it, go into the match, and whatnot, and thankfully, I felt like I delivered. We went out there and just did our thing, and I felt like I had a good showing. It wasn’t until later that day or a little bit later, his wife AJ told me he asked to work with me. He never revealed this; he never let me know. But if it wasn’t for his wife, I never would have known. Because of him, because of him asking to work with me, and when I found out, I went to him and I thanked him. He said so many glowing things about my talent and about how people like me deserve opportunities.”

Whoa, interesting stuff, right? Well guess what? It gets even better, as Big E had plenty more to say on the subject, letting fans know just how quickly things turned around for him after locking horns with the “Best in the World.”

Big E recalls how his matches with CM Punk led to an IC Title run.

Continuing his conversation with Sarah O'Connell, Big E broke down the timeline of his WWE upswing, revealing how his second match with CM Punk led to a feud with Curtis Axel that ultimately led to an IC Title win two months later.

“It really meant so much to me because from that, I can’t remember if it was the next SmackDown, I think it was the next SmackDown, but we have another match,” Big E recalled. “He beats me again, but here comes RybAxel with Paul Heyman. I was a heel my whole career in the main roster. I turned babyface on them, get cooking, and then that leads to a program with Curtis Axel where I win the IC Title, and now my career is off to the races, and I’m in a good place. There were hiccups along the way, too, but at least I get that opportunity to go from someone who’s just known on the main roster as a bodyguard, get the matches with Punk, that sets things in motion for me to be established, to win the IC Title. Then, from there, I was able to get going. So that one is so important to me for many reasons. One, I was able to prove to myself that, yeah, I can with the guys who are the best in the world, I belong here. Two, it saved my career, and I can’t thank him enough for that, and I’m so grateful for it because I truly don’t even know where my life would be if it wasn’t for him going out of his way to look out for young talent.”

Would Big E's run in WWE have eventually gotten better had Punk not placed his thumb on the proverbial scale? Maybe yes, maybe no. Big E was a buff former college football player who could talk, which checks basically every box on Vince McMahon's list minus being 6-foot-5, so it's safe to say he was always going to get a plethora of chances to succeed. Still, good on Big E for remembering that small act of kindness from Punk a decade later and holding it in such high regard, as the story is inspiring.