Former SmackDown General Manager Teddy Long revealed how the WWE locker room reacted to CM Punk’s infamous 2011 promo lambasting Vince McMahon.
CM Punk is no stranger to causing controversy, and he recently lit the wrestling world on fire during the post-AEW All Out media scrum with inflammatory comments aimed at Colt Cabana, Adam Page, and AEW EVP’s the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega. In the wake of the brawl that ensued after the media scrum, multiple top stars were suspended, and it remains up in the air whether we’ll ever see CM Punk in AEW again.
However, this is far from the first time that CM Punk has made waves on the microphone. On June 27, 2011, following a match between John Cena and R-Truth, CM Punk sat on the ramp and delivered his most famous promo that would go on to be dubbed the “pipebomb.” Adorned in a Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt, the Chicagoan called out John Cena ahead of their upcoming title match at Money in the Bank.
The tone quickly shifted, though, to Punk criticizing Vince McMahon for the way he ran the company, saying that McMahon is a millionaire who should be a billionaire but he squandered deserving talent and didn’t market them properly. The segment ended with Punk’s mic being cut off, adding to the idea that he might have gone off-script when criticizing both McMahon and his family, such as Stephanie McMahon and Triple H.
In an interview with Nick Hausman of WrestlingInc, former SmackDown General Manager Teddy Long discussed the promo and spoke on the idea that he believes Punk indeed went off-script.
“If that was scripted or written then I know nothing about it. I never saw anybody give him any papers, you know what I mean? Any scripts to read. Like I said, there may be things that are done backstage, sometimes people don’t know, but I pretty much think it was a shoot. It was real.”
Continuing, Teddy Long recalled the shock in the WWE locker room when the promo was delivered, saying that some found it to be “too much.”
“Everybody was kind of looking at each other like, ‘Did he just say that? Because this was all brand new. We never had anybody to go out on live TV and to just go off on a rant like that and just speak their mind. So it was all brand new. It was all something that we’d never experienced and we’d never heard. So we’re like, ‘Man, this is too much.'”
h/t WrestlingInc