For the longest time, it seemed like the biggest obstacle preventing CM Punk from returning to WWE was one person and one person alone: Vince McMahon.
Sure, Punk burned a few other bridges on his way out of the door too, as he had to bend fences with Paul “Triple H” Levesque on his way back in and rubbed The Undertaker in such a wrong way that he stated that “Phil Brooks would never end the streak,” but after calling the former Chairman of the Board pretty much every bad name in the book during his time away, it felt like they could never work for the same company ever again.
And yet, for a few weeks in 2023 and a few more in 2024, they did just that, with Punk debuting at Survivor Seires and McMahon resigning a few hours before the 2024 Royal Rumble.
Asked by Ariel Helwani if he interacted with Mr. McMahon at any point during their shared run in WWE, Punk admitted that he did once, but it wasn't exactly something to write home about.
“I saw him at the towers because, again, everything happens so fast, so the Monday before Thanksgiving, I get a phone call, ‘Oh we realize we can do this, and I was just, and I don't know, and again, Nick Khan, ‘Hey man, if this doesn't happen by Satuday, you know, Royal Rumble.' And I was like, ‘Nick, I don't want to give away any leverage in negotiation, but Saturday's the business, like, it has to happen, you know?' So hammering out a deal, Saturday debut, Sunday I'm at home, and I'm like, ‘Man, this is strange, I don't know what we're doing, where this is going, but it feels right, and then I get a call, ‘Hey, we should probably get you travel for TV, we're in Nashville.' So I fly to Nashville, and I think I went home, and I can't remember where I flew from there, but it was SmackDown, and that night, they were just like, ‘Do you want to come on the jet and do NXT? and I just went, ‘Yeah, sounds good,” CM Punk told Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour.
“And we're flying by the seat of our pants, we're doing all of this stuff real last minute, and I had a carry-on, so I didn't have any clothes, so as long as you guys find me a place to do my laundry, I need a gym to workout, ‘Oh, we'll give you a tour of the new towers, you know, you can come through the gym' and I was like, great, it's always a bada** gym, everything was state of the art, and I was in there and I was on the phone on a treadmill warming up and Vince's trainer was like, ‘Hey, you gotta get off the phone, Vince doesn't like it when people are on the phone in the gym. And I was on the phone with Nick, and I was just kind of like, ‘Okay,' and then I saw him walking down into the gym, and he came in for his daily workout… He gave me a big hug and told me welcome home and good to see ya, and let's connect after I workout, and I was like, ‘Alright,' and haven't seen him since.”
Alright, well, there you go; Punk technically interacted with Mr. McMahon, but they didn't exactly have a heart-to-heart worthy of a Step Brothers-esque “Did we just become best friends?” moment. In the end, that's probably for the best, as based on his comment a few moments later, it's hard to imagine McMahon would want to talk to Punk… or Punk wanting to talk to McMahon for that matter, either.
CM Punk talks Vince McMahon:
"It’s indefensible… There are victims here, so what CM Punk thinks about Vince and the CM Punk/Vince relationship doesn’t fuc*ing mean anything. All that stuff takes a backseat. I’m more concerned about, like, going forward, how those people survive… pic.twitter.com/3XQUjnftIq
— AFeldmanMMA (@afeldMMA) April 1, 2024
CM Punk believes Vince McMahon's actions were indefensible.
Turning his attention from his last interaction with Vince McMahon to the allegations against him, CM Punk was asked by Ariel Helwani for his official comment on the matter and let it be known that, while he wasn't around for most of it, he has no problem condemning it one bit.
“I mean, how do you feel, there's no positivity there, you know? There's very much a, I didn't read all of the allegations, I read text messages, and I went, ‘Oh, f**k this, it's indefensible, you know?” CM Punk noted. “And I think, you know, doing this, I imagined I was gonna be asked about it, you know, and be asked about it, and I think the easiest thing for people to do is to kind of ignore it or avoid it but man, it's there and my initial, the first thing out of my mouth was, ‘I'm kind of shock at how dumb he was,' like, writing stuff down and leaving that paper trail and it's horrific, and I'm not, like, at this point, I think all of the energy should be used to somehow, I don't even know if you can make reparations or amends, but there's victims here, you know, so what CM Punk thinks about Vince and the CM Punk-Vince relationship doesn't f**king mean anything, all of that stuff takes a back seat, I'm more concerned about, like, going forward, how do those people survive after suffering all of that trauma; my biggest concern, you know?”
So, in Punk's opinion, is WWE, and wrestling in general, better off without Mr. McMahon? In the “Second City Saint's” opinion, the answer is pretty easy.
“At this point, how do you say anything?” Punk asked. “But yes, the business is better without him, obviously.”
Welp, there you go, folks; if you wanted a definitive condemnation of Mr. McMahon from the “Second City Saint,” then you got it in spades, as it's clear he has no interest in ever interacting with the former Chairman of the Board ever again, even as he helps to lead his former company.
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