While CM Punk has largely operated as a lone wolf during his professional wrestling career, the AEW World Champion has had the occasional friend in his corner. During his time in Ring of Honor, Punk tagged with Colt Cabana as the Second City Saints. In WWE, he found himself in leadership roles for both the Straight Edge Society and the New Nexus. Towards the end of his run with World Wrestling Entertainment, Punk had Paul Heyman in his corner. In an alternate universe, Punk would’ve had a manager from the jump in WWE, and it would have been his girlfriend at the time.
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“I was supposed to debut before and it was with CM Punk as his manager on Sunday [Night Heat],” heavily-decorated wrestling legend Mickie James revealed on Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw. “I was so devastated at that moment when Hunter (Triple H) came back and said, ‘I like both you guys. I just don’t see it together.’”
Punk was signed to WWE in 2005, and would report to Ohio Valley Wrestling that September. Meanwhile, James had been working with OVW for two years, and was due for a main roster debut at any moment. That came for James in October 2005, when she arrived to Monday Night RAW as Trish Stratus’ biggest fan. That storyline culminated the following year, where James defeated Stratus at WWE WrestleMania 22 for the WWE Women’s Title.
Punk’s main roster arrival wouldn’t come until the summer of 2006, when the Voice of the Voiceless joined WWE’s ECW roster. It took Punk just under a year to capture gold of his own.
While James knows she can ask “what if?” forever, she emphasized that she’s satisfied with how things played out.
“They filled that spot with some replays of something else that happened on RAW with Rhyno or something. I was so devastated at that moment,” James said. “But then I went like, ‘How different would my career be if my introduction to the WWE Universe was Sunday Night Heat, a manager for CM Punk?’ Would it have been great? Probably, yeah, but it wouldn’t have been what Trish and I had which was really special and it was a game changer. I think it really started to help flip the script to say, Okay, well women can also be just two females, a main storyline driven thing, because that was really one of the first ones that I can recall.”
Mickie James recently reigned as Impact Knockouts Champion, but lost that title this past March. Punk is currently AEW World Champion, but is out of action with a foot injury.
