CM Punk says he’s not interested in pro wrestling amidst mounting speculation that the former WWE Champion is set to end his seven-year hiatus and return to the ring.
Punk has been at the forefront of wrestling fans’ minds over the last several weeks after it was reported that the Straight Edge Superstar was supposedly in talks about joining AEW.
The rumours and innuendo ramped up after AEW announced the second-ever edition of their Friday night Rampage show will take place inside the United Center in Punk’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois. That event sold out minutes after tickets went on general release with fans hoping to see their hometown hero appear.
Cm Punk however is keeping his powder dry as far as it pertains to a return to the squared circle and gave nothing away during an appearance on Sunday Night’s Main Event.
Punk first discussed early conversations between himself and AEW President Tony Khan, admitting it was very much a case of once bitten, twice shy for the veteran:
“I talked to Tony. You know, my perception on this, and I said this to Tony, to his face at that time… I’m a guy who has constantly heard, ‘Hey I got a money guy, hey I got TV.’ I’ve heard that at least once or twice a year for 15-20 years of my wrestling career. I’ve gotten bounced checks from those gentlemen. You watched it happen, especially after ECW folded, it was everybody was re-starting ECW, everybody was going to be the ECW guys.”
“There was a dude named John Collins, who did time in prison for bouncing checks, and it always seems like somebody’s gonna, ‘Oh we’re going to start up and we’re going to compete with Vince [McMahon],’ and I always thought that came from a bad spot because if you want to start up a pro wrestling company, I think you should always just focus on yourself.”
Punk continued saying as he waited with the rest of the wrestling world to see how AEW panned out, he found other interests outside the ring:
“So, I more or less took a wait-and-see approach,” Punk said of Khan and AEW. “And I wasn’t, or I am not, interested in pro wrestling, in that respect. We’re here, we’re talking about ‘Heels’ and it just so happened, maybe it could be back luck that the next role I got is set in the world of professional wrestling, but you know, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
“I’m focused on bring an actor, and just like I was when I was a wrestler, focused on being the best I could be, I’m focused on being the best actor I could be.”
CM Punk also commented during the interview that he might be busy with prior commitments on the night of Rampage in Chicago, the 20th of August.
Tony Khan has recently poured more gasoline on the ‘Punk to AEW’ fire, saying fans attending Rampage in Chicago “know what to expect.”