While the professional wrestling world was going wild over CM Punk‘s comments on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani regarding the two biggest promoters in the world today, Vince McMahon and Tony Khan, comparing the former to Chris Benoit while pointing out that the latter is simply incapable of running a successful wrestling company, the “Best in the World” hid a few very interesting nuggets in his incredibly expansive interview, including who he expected to wrestle at the “Showcase of the Immortals” if he didn't suffer a torn biceps.

Who, you may ask, did Paul “Triple H” Levesque have in mind for Punker's big singles return? Was it a legend like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin? Or maybe a rapidly rising pro like Logan Paul. Well, as it turns out, the right answer was the obvious one, as Levesque tabbed Seth Rollins, the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion and a man he'd been feuding with pretty much since the moment he returned to the promotion at Survivor Series last November, as Punker's preferred partner.

“It changed a lot. I came back in and told Triple H, ‘Look, I'm not here to steal anybody's spotlight, take anybody's main event. I get it.' I was pissed ten years ago when I had to sit through Rock-Cena two years in a row. Now, everything is different,” CM Punk explained on MMA Hour via Fightful. “Mania is two nights. More people get that opportunity. For me, the booker in my head, you cannot become main event talent unless you work with other main event talent. You can't become main event talent unless you work main event spots afforded to main event talent. That's what I crave. More knowledge and experience. I want to be that guy and see if I can be that guy. The plan, I think, was me and Seth.”

After confirming that their match likely would have main evented Night 1, Helwani asked if he was cool with that match by Helwani, Punker gave it the thumbs up, noting that their history would have made for a great match.

“Me and Seth? Yeah. There is history there. There is a story there,” Punk noted. “I can sink my teeth into me and Seth.”

Alright, so if Punk wrestled Rollins at WrestleMania 40, what would that have meant for The Rock and his appearance alongside his cousin Roman Reigns? Would they have done their much-anticipated singles match in the main event of Night 2? Or did Levesque have something else up his sleeve entirely? Unfortunately, fans may never know.

CM Punk reveals how his WWE return came together.

Elsewhere in his interview with Ariel Helwani, CM Punk commented on the process by which he returned to WWE, namely how Nick Khan played into a very interesting Thanksgiving weekend in the Punk-AJ Lee household.

“The action of it started the week of, I think, Thanksgiving… I'd have to look at a calendar to figure out dates exactly. I remember times and places of where I was when I would get phone calls and such. And I had a CFFC show coming up, I think. So I got a call from Nick Khan, and he was just like ‘Hey, we want to talk to you.' And I was like ‘Cool. [I'm] on my way to the gym, and I have this coming up. CFFC, I'll be back.' ‘Cool, you want to talk Monday?' ‘Great,'” CM Punk told Ariel Helwani via EWrestling News.

“So it was the week of Thanksgiving. I spoke to him Monday…The call, I'm always so nervous about pulling the curtain back on stuff, but I think the call was more about ‘Hey, we want to talk about you coming back. We'd love you for Royal Rumble.' Cause they assumed that I probably had some sort of noncompete or something like that, and were kind of floored when I was like ‘No man, I'm ready to go. Let's do it.”

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Asked what it was like to put his past issues aside with Triple H ahead of his return, Punk noted that, after a decade, he was happy to bury the hatchet.

“It's funny because everyone calls him Paul [now] … I always call him Triple H or Hunter,” Punk noted.”When I spoke to him, that's when the ball really got rolling, you know? Cause it was a very… I asked him if he wanted to talk on the phone, and he said ‘No. I would actually rather kind of like to face-time you, so I can see you.' And I was like ‘Oh, that's interesting.' We just talked about a whole lot of stuff, and about stuff that was at one point serious to probably both of us… that is silly now. And we just kind of laughed and buried the hatchet. And then we started talking business.”

If things had worked out better for Punk in AEW, would he have ever talked to Triple H again? No, probably not, but hey, when one forbidden door closes – or, more aptly, a bridge is burned down – why not knock on another to see if time has healed the wounds? It seems to have worked for Punk now that Nick Khan is in the mix.