Welcome to the Miserable World of CM Punk

The Grievance King Brings His Toxic Act to AEW

CM Punk has built his personal wrestling brand on the twin pillars of integrity and honesty. Whether a bad guy or the hero, Punk refused to be anything but “real.” He was a truth-teller, a firebrand, better-than-you and not willing to pretend otherwise. He told it like it was, whether you wanted to hear it or not, to the loudmouth fans in the front row and even to the mighty Vince McMahon himself.

A crock of shit I say.

Phil Brooks, the actor who plays Punk on television and seemingly can’t stop being him even in his unscripted time, is as phony as they come.

In New York, as he pocketed millions of WWE dollars as a top star, he claimed he wanted to “change” wrestling, to protect the sacred art of Funk and Gotch and Flair. At least, that’s the legend and lore he’s built up around himself courtesy of a fawning wrestling media and a passel of hardcore fans, so glad a guy representing their preferred indie workrate style was doing his thing on the big stage that they were willing to buy just about anything.

But that was a lie.

The only change he wanted to see was on the top of the card. The change that was missing was the name “CM Punk” on every pay-per-view poster and penciled in for the WrestleMania main event. It was never about wrestling, his peers or a dying art. It was about money and ego, nothing more and nothing less.

“I hate this idea that you’re the best,” Punk told John Cena during his famous ‘Pipe Bomb’ interview in 2011. “Because you’re not. I’m the best. I’m the best in the world. There’s one thing you’re better at than I am and that’s kissing Vince McMahon’s ass.”

“Best in the world” is something Punk, unlike Kenny Omega, has never been. It’s a catchphrase. It’s cosplay. He knows it. That’s why, despite the bank account and the adoring fans he hates, he brings bile and poison with him everywhere he goes in the world of wrestling. The arbiter of truth and realness is living a lie.

And he knows it.

In the ring, Punk has peaked at “very good.” Cena sold more merchandise, drew better television ratings, better represented the company to the public and corporate partners and worked tirelessly with sick and struggling children. He was better than Punk in every way that mattered when it came to choosing a champion. The idea Punk was a better standard bearer was laughable, whether hardcores were willing to hear it at the time or not.

WWE was right. Punk was wrong. In his largest moment, he sat smirking on the stage and betrayed a complete misunderstanding of what it is to be the top guy in the industry.

The resulting program didn’t draw big numbers and Punk was soon relegated to the position he was better suited for—one just beneath the mountain’s top. He wasn’t the “top guy” for a reason. But it’s likely he’s never really grappled with why he wasn’t the lead long enough to learn anything from the experience, blaming others for his failures like always.

It must have eaten him alive to see “The Elite” marshal their energy and resources to help launch AEW as a national brand after he decided to sit it out. They came from the same places he did, earning national reputations on the independent scene and then Ring of Honor. But, while he had talked a big game for so long, whinging and whining about how there was no place for someone like him at the top of the wrestling game, they had taken a chance on realizing a vision.

Punk was willing to talk about changing wrestling, but never willing to put skin in the game. Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes could and did. They risked their reputations because they believed in presenting wrestling in a different way. Others, like Adam Page and MJF turned down WWE opportunities because it was a vision they believed in.

They did what Punk only talked about.

And that’s what makes his press conference appearance after All Out so galling. Forget, for a moment, his endless attack on Colt Cabana and odd decision to rehash a legal dispute that was old news before AEW was even a spark in its owner’s eye.

Punk, angry as usual, also lashed out at Omega, the Bucks and Page, big-timing them about what a major star he is and how low wattage all their accomplishments in the industry have been. The Elite, he said, think they’re in Reseda at a small-time independent show with their “niche audience.” Page, who has main-evented multiple AEW shows and been the centerpiece of one of the company’s most successful storylines, has “never done anything in the business” according to Punk, whose one-year in the promotion has seen television ratings remain mostly stagnant.

In those moments, the mask slipped.

Punk was supposed to be the voice of the voiceless, the avatar of the hardcore fan, the one mainstream wrestler speaking the same language we did. He was here to help the young guys, to make wrestling a better place for them. Remember that? Another bald-faced lie.

Although Punk has always worn his indie credentials on his sleeve like they were one of his gaudy tattoos, the truth is that he doesn’t see accomplishments as worthwhile unless they happened on a WWE stage.

Page was the champion before Punk and being pushed as the babyface of the future.

The Elite created the promotion alongside Tony Khan and Chris Jericho and provided it with a beating heart and soul.

None of that means anything to Punk, who clearly doesn’t respect them, Khan, the promotion, or the fans who have poured so much into making it a success. He sat with the AEW title next to him like a forgotten prop, the “veteran wisdom” he wants so desperately to be asked for apparently telling him it was the time to prosecute personal grudges rather than promote the show or his upcoming feud with a returning MJF.

AEW doesn’t mean anything to him. We don’t mean anything to him. He respects nothing and no one, which seems cool when you’re both 25 and less cool when it comes from a seething, lonely 40-something man. At one point he cut TK off to loudly proclaim “I’m trying to run a fucking business.” If Khan isn’t willing to stand up for himself as a man he employs struts and swaggers at his expense, he could at least stand up for the company and the people who believed in it.

Worse, none of this makes any sense. Punk’s grievances sounded like the delusions of a madman. He detailed a leak designed to make him look bad—but there’s no evidence that this even happened. If so, it didn’t work.

No one was talking about Page’s months-old promo that supposedly had Punk so riled. It hadn’t created a ripple of discontent. If it was a “thing”, it was because Punk himself had made it one in an angry in-ring, out-of-continuity rant. MJF had referenced the Cabana lawsuit much more explicitly earlier in the year on television. Eddie Kingston told Punk to his face, much like Page did, that the locker room didn’t want him there. So what was so different here besides Punk seeing an opportunity to throw his weight around at the expense of people he saw as rivals?

Because it’s trendy at the moment, Punk has embraced the cult of Bret Hart, seeing something of himself in the legendary wrestler who was battered by the machine. But Bret wasn’t a cynical bully, selectively picking targets, loudly stating who he would and wouldn’t do business with or threatening to go home or discover an injury when the booking didn’t land his way. CM Punk isn’t Bret Hart. He’s Shawn Michaels at his most destructive and diva-ish worst.

From the beginning, AEW felt like a vision we all shared together, fans and wrestlers and promoter alike. We all believed things could be different, that wrestling didn’t need to be toxic, messy and uncomfortable. The 45-year-old neckbeards who hate-watch wrestling and bootleg your shows to make fun of them online are rolling their eyes right now. But the fans who built this company with you sure aren’t.

Fans flocked to AEW because it felt different. We wanted to embrace the wrestlers who shared this vision, the people whose eyes twinkled with joy, the ones who were having fun and not afraid to let you know it. I hoped CM Punk might grasp hold of this new world he supposedly craved for so long too. That it might change him, or at least help him reveal the changed man he had become once removed from the pressure of performing in WWE.

But CM Punk doesn’t want change if the thing being changed is him. He wants, as ever, for the world to rearrange itself to meet his every whim. Barring that, he’s willing to burn it all down.

Punk has challenged anyone who has an issue with him to address it directly. That probably didn’t include dipshit fans, but, well, here it is, in a language everybody here can easily understand. In the age of the ironic fan, I’m willing to stand up and say that I love AEW and will fight for it, even if it’s only with a keyboard and a digital rant.

Fuck CM Punk and his faded brand of wrestling politics, replete with ridiculous reality show nonsense, blurred lines and bitter envy disguised as truth. CM Punk doesn’t represent change or a new path forward—he’s the last gasp of an ethos that should have died when ECW did.