CM Punk has given his thoughts on the dreaded ‘F’ word being used to describe professional wrestling and says he even calls it fake now as well.
The word ‘fake’ has been used pejoratively to describe professional wrestling for as long as there were men and women willing to lock up in a ring. Former WWE Raw Women’s Champion and MMA icon Ronda Rousey caused a stir latterly in her time with WWE when she called out wrestling for being ‘fake fighting.’
Now former WWE Champion CM Punk has given his views on the matter seven years after called time on clobbering time in the ring. Speaking on the Wrestling Perspectives podcast, Punk says that the very thing that used to bother him is something he now does himself – call wrestling fake.
CM Punk explained:
“I very much look at wrestling nowadays as theater. There might have been a time when I might have been offended when somebody said that, right? It’s like calling it fake. There was probably a time when I’d get mad if somebody called it fake. Now I call it fake all the time.”
Punk went on to explain why, for him, the argument that TV shows and movies aren’t real either doesn’t wash with him as a comparison to wrestling.
Punk said:
“People [who dislike wrestling being called “fake”] would use the argument like, ‘So are movies,’” Punk added. “My argument is, ‘Yeah, but Al Pacino didn’t go do pressers dressed as Scarface with his bulls*** accent trying to get you to believe that he was really a Cuban immigrant that built a cocaine empire.’ You know, yada yada yada.”
In the same appearance on the podcast, CM Punk told the quite astonishing tale of when he was awoken by an excited Robin Williams who Punk then chased before airplane spinning over his shoulders.