WWE Reportedly Unhappy With CM Punk, Don't Want Him to Wrestle for Them

CM Punk left the door for a in-ring return slightly cracked open in a recent interview when he listed four wrestlers that would be able to bring him out of retirement (but only if the money and conditions were right). For years fans have assumed the only thing stopping the former WWE Champion from stepping back inside a WWE ring is Punk himself, but according to Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer that might not be the case. Meltzer explained on a recent Wrestling Observer Radio that there are people within WWE that aren't happy with him, and that they're not jumping at the chance to get him back in action anytime soon.

"I do know that WWE is pretty negative on the idea of Punk wrestling, more than I thought they would be but they are," Meltzer said. "I think the idea is between Bill Goldberg and Edge and Undertaker and people like that, they've got their fair share of guys like that. There's a lot of bitterness. Apparently there's more bitterness on the WWE side right now than on the Punk side. I would have thought it would be the other way around."

Punk has been popping up on WWE Backstage about once a month since November, and he's made it no secret on the show that he's unhappy with a lot of WWE's creative decisions.

"I think the product is the same as when I left it," Punk said during his first appearance. "Wrestling could be so much better, it could be so much more. Obviously there's a reason myself, yourself, everybody who puts on a pair of boots fell in love with professional wrestling. And regardless of what I think of the product now, the opinion is the same as when I was there.

"Stuff is overproduced, stuff's micromanaged. I think the best characters, the people that fans love the most throughout all of wrestling are the characters that they get to figure stuff out themselves instead of being told what to do by somebody who've never done anything, never been anywhere. 'never drew money, brother.' So I think there's a lot wrong with it, but I see a lot of bright spots."

Heading into tonight's Raw, here's the official WrestleMania 36 card as of now:

• WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar vs. Drew McIntyre
• WWE Universal Championship: Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns
• John Cena vs. "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt
• NXT Women's Championship: Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair
• Raw Women's Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler
• Raw Tag Team Championships: The Street Profits vs. Andrade & Angel Garza
• SmackDown Women's Championship: Bayley vs. Lacey Evans vs. Dana Brooke vs. Tamina vs. Naomi vs. Sasha Banks
• SmackDown Tag Team Championships: The Miz & John Morrison vs. The New Day vs. The Usos
• The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles
• Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins
• Aleister Black vs. Bobby Lashley