CM Punk Doesn’t Believe The Undertaker’s Retirement Claim

The Undertaker declared in the series finale of Undertaker: The Last Ride that he would not be stepping back inside of a wrestling ring to compete again, effectively retiring nearly 30 full years after his WWE debut. But given how most retirements in pro wrestling don’t tend to stick and “The Deadman” had debated with retirement numerous times throughout the series, many fans and wrestlers alike aren’t buying the claim. One of those wrestlers includes CM Punk, who had somewhat of a rocky relationship with Mark Calaway during his earlier days in WWE but wound up putting on an excellent bout with him back at WrestleMania 29.

“I don’t think he’s retired, come on. That’s my reaction, there’s no way,” Punk said while on Good Show with Ben Ennis and JD Bunkis (h/t WrestlingNews.co for transcript). “This is a guy who can and most likely will, in my opinion, at least make an entrance every WrestleMania. You know what I mean? They just did the whole movie-match type thing I like to call it, as I liked to call it on Backstage on Fox. I just feel like that can add some longevity to his career, I don’t see him going anywhere.

“He’s a guy who in recent years has gone away and popped back up so it’s just so unceremonious to have the documentary where every episode he retired and then unretired. Then at the end of it he said he retired again. It’s part of wrestling now. Terry Funk, Ric Flair, everybody retires and comes back. I think selfishly everybody wants to see him come back.”

Punk’s takes about the current wrestling business may now be few and far between, as FOX recently shut down WWE Backstage production as a weekly news show. The former WWE Champion had been a frequent panelist on the show since making his surprise debut in November. In one of his last appearances, Punk called out WWE for writing the Jeff Hardy/Sheamus substance abuse storyline, which continued on this week’s SmackDown.

“I’m speaking from experience because obviously I worked extensively with Jeff,” Punk said in early June. “He, at that point (back in 2009 when the pair had a storyline regarding substance abuse), was maybe not at a great place both mentally and physically. My thing with this segment and this story is that somebody’s sobriety is very fragile and important. So, we discussed whether they should or shouldn’t do this with Jeff, we talk about how maybe Jeff was okay with it. Maybe it’s his idea, he greenlit it.

“To me, it’s the responsibility of the writers, promoter, whoever, to get in front of that and say, ‘No, we’re not doing that to Jeff again. We don’t need him to be in this position again,’” he continued.” I think cleaning your life up and being sober is something to be proud of and we can champion that in different ways. I think this is the wrong way to go about it, you just don’t put him in front of that moving car.”