CM Punk reasons The Rock and John Cena’s part-time WWE appearances.
At the 2023 Survivor Series, CM Punk made his much-awaited WWE return after almost a decade. Soon enough, Punk made his in-ring return at Royal Rumble 2024, only to injure himself. However, despite his injury, Punk often made televised appearances, and became involved in a rivalry against Drew McIntyre.
At the same time, The Rock also made his return last year ahead of WrestleMania 40, and even had a match at Mania, before again going on a hiatus. Absent for all this while, he recently returned to SmackDown, and is now confirmed to appear at the 2025 Elimination Chamber on 1st March, 2025.
Even last year, John Cena announced 2025 as his final year as a wrestler, and officially began his retirement tour at the 2025 Royal Rumble. Although absent since then, Cena has confirmed himself for the Elimination Chamber as well, and is scheduled to return tomorrow. Despite Cena and Johnson’s recent WWE involvements, they have mostly maintained a part-time status, and are often busy with their filming schedules.
Recently speaking with Alex McCarthy of Daily Mail, Punk shared his thoughts on the part-time status of these names. Admitting a change in his perspective from almost a decade ago, The Second City Saint commented,
“I’m sure it will. I’m sure it’s gonna trickle down and affect everybody. I think one of the difficult parts of this being so big and there’s so many moving parts, and you’re seeing it with [John] Cena now. Definitely, I have a different perspective now than I did ten years ago, when I was working with The Rock. It was easy for everybody to say, ‘You’re not here. We’re grinding, we’re doing this.’ The schedule now is so much limited than it was ten years ago. I can’t point a finger at somebody else now and say, ‘Well, you’re not here.’ Plus, a guy like John Cena, to me, he’s a busy dude. He’s earned that right.
He’s stated that he’s retiring, this is going to be his final run. So I’m less inclined to say, ‘You should be here doing this, doing that.’ Sometimes, the tickets sell themselves when we’re in these international markets, and you hear ‘John Cena retirement tour,’ that’s gonna put butts in seats. John Cena doesn’t necessarily need to show up every week. He’s busy filming a movie, and I understand that.
But there’s a flip side to that coin where there is still a locker room full of pro wrestlers, and they will get a chip on their shoulder, and there will be resentment because there are people that feel, ‘Oh, I’m here every week. I’m doing this, I’m doing this.’ But really at the end of the day, I think everybody just wants to rise to that level, and along the way, yeah, we’re gonna poke, we’re gonna prod. We’re gonna say, ‘Hey, Rock. You showed up here, how come you’re not here? Why aren’t you doing this?’ I think the fans do that too. I think they enjoy it when they see us do it, too.
There’s no denying what a giant box office star The Rock is. I think peeling back a little bit and him being ‘Final Boss’ instead of being happy-go-lucky Rock, I think that is a character that can say, ‘Yeah, I’m not here all the time. Yeah, so what? I’ll show up for eight minutes every six months, and it’ll still be the biggest.’ I think there’s freedom and there’s an air to play with that a little bit, and it makes it better and more real and more exciting for everybody. But yeah, piss off for not being here every week, guys. Come on [laughs],”
H/t Fightful
Punk is next scheduled to be in the Elimination Chamber match alongside John Cena, Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre, and Damian Priest.
CM Punk Comments On His Relationship With Roman Reigns
In the same interview with Alex McCarthy of Daily Mail, CM Punk opened up more on his relation with Roman Reigns. Claiming there is more left for the fans to see, he shared:
“Oh, yeah, I think everybody could see that. There’s been a few times in my career where you don’t really have to do much, and you realize, oh, you got ‘em. When you start off in this business, at least early in my career, I remember flying off the top rope, landing on the concrete on the floor in front of 13 people. You look back at that now and you go, man, why was I doing that? Look, I can just stand next to this guy in a shark cage.
But it’s the years that I put in, it’s the work that Roman’s put in. When you finally see those two guys stand next to each other and stare at each other, there’s definitely something there. It got people excited. So I definitely think you’ll probably see more of that in the future. I did throw him over at Royal Rumble. That’s pretty neat.”