CM Punk spoke with the Absolute Geek Podcast during San Diego Comic-Con last weekend and was asked about the news regarding Vince McMahon’s sudden departure from WWE. McMahon’s retirement announcement was quickly followed by the news that Stephanie McMahon (Chairwoman and Co-CEO), Nick Khan (Co-CEO) and Paul Levesque (Head of Creative) would be stepping in to Vince’s roles in the wake of the ongoing scandal of him paying millions to former employees to keep alleged sexual misconduct quiet. Punk’s tumultuous WWE history is well-documented and he was skeptical about McMahon truly being separated from the company.
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“You think because he tweeted that ‘I’m retired’ that he’s not going to be hands-on?” Punk sarcastically asked. When the interviewer pointed out that someday McMahon will truly be gone (i.e. when he passes away), Punk said, “Sure, we all are. I don’t think the structure there, the….what’s the word I’m looking for…I don’t think the culture there changes at all. It is what it is.
Punk then talked about Sasha Banks and Naomi’s decision to walk out on an episode of Raw several months ago and how WWE handled this versus Brock Lesnar reportedly walking out ahead of SmackDown last week after he learned of McMahon’s announcement. “The Beast” was convinced to come back before the show ended, while Banks and Naomi were publicly chastised by the commentary team for several weeks after their suspensions were announced.
“I’ll put it to you like this,” Punk said. “Oh boy, people are going to be real f—ing mad about this, but f— it. Mercedes [Sasha Banks] and Trinity [Naomi] leave and they announce on SmackDown that, ‘gosh darn, we are so disappointed in them, they really let our fans down.’ Brock splits. [He] comes back, obviously, I think he worked the show. But where is Michael Cole saying, ‘Brock Lesnar really let these fans down.’ I walked out. They went on TV and called me a quitter. What’s changed? What’s the difference? You’re going to attack these two f—ing poor women who had enough and walked? They have bigger balls than everybody there. So what’s changed? There’s nothing much that has changed. And there’s people that talk about it and people who do it. The people who lick the boots and have the audacity to go on live television and say that about those two women. F—ing cowards and bootlickers. This s— is ridiculous. Why didn’t they do it to Brock? They did it for me. It’s none of my business.”
