CM Punk has been a member of the All Elite Wrestling roster for a little over two months and his tenure has already led to some major moments like AEW Rampage selling out Chicago’s United Center and his bout with Darby Allin at the All Out pay-per-view. But before Punk signed on the dotted line and became All Elite, there were still some wrestling fans out there holding out hope he might eventually make his way back to WWE. But, as Punk explained while speaking with radio personality Josh Martinez this week, a return to WWE never truly interested him.
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“I literally want to wrestle everybody, but I’m telling a specific story here of coming back, kind of restarting, rekindling my love for pro wrestling. If I went back to WWE, what would I do? There’s a formula. There’s a track record and a formula,” Punk said (h/t WrestleTalk). “This is what they do. Batista comes back, he wins the Royal Rumble, he main events WrestleMania. Edge comes back. He’s in the Royal Rumble. I think he was in it twice. He might have won [he did], I don’t know. He goes on the main event WrestleMania. There’s a formula and I was bored of that s— 10 years ago, so I’m bored of it now. I understand people saying that they don’t like certain things and all that, then it’s not for you. I get it. Like I said, I’m there for the fans in the building. I’m telling the stories that I want to tell, and I’m having fun doing it. You’ll know when it’s not fun for me because I won’t do it.”
Last week’s AEW Rampage saw Punk get into a verbal altercation with Eddie Kingston, meaning that’s probably his next opponent on either an episode of Dynamite/Rampage or the upcoming Full Gear pay-per-view.
Punk has gone into his decision to not return to WWE in a number of interviews over the past few months, telling the New York Post he wasn’t sure, “it was ever really an option to go back there,” given the “baggage” from his last run and tumultuous departure with the company. He also talked about his mental state in his final days in WWE while on Busted Open Radio.
“In my head I’m always like, well what would Harley Race do? He would keep going,” he said. “There’s only so many times you can get hurt and keep going. I was never given time off after an elbow surgery, a knee surgery, narrowly avoided a hip surgery. It was always, ‘No, we need you.’ And it’s nice to be needed, but they will run you dry. And I was on that path. I watched too many friends get swallowed up by this business, and by drugs, and everything else they maybe thought that they had to do to keep going. And I was a cycle breaker. I took myself out of it. I’ve never really been proud of myself about a lot of things, but that’s just a real life thing that I was proud of myself about.
“Because I took a step back and I was like, they’re not listening to me. I’m sick, I’m hurt,” Punk added. “They’re not going to take care of me. I had to take care of myself, you know what I mean? It caused a lot of drama, a lot of silly baggage. But I’m alive; I woke up this morning. It sounds dramatic, but it’s not bulls—.”
