CM Punk is once again the Undisputed WWE Champion, and the timing of his latest title victory wasn’t lost on him.
Punk made his surprise return on the July 6 edition of WWE Raw from his hometown of Rosemont, Illinois, replacing Cody Rhodes as Sami Zayn’s challenger for the Undisputed WWE Championship. He defeated Zayn clean in the main event to capture the title and end the Zayn’s title reign after just nine days.
While appearing on the ‘What’s Your Story? with Steph McMahon’ podcast (full episode below), Punk reflected on the fact that the victory came exactly 15 years after his iconic WWE Championship win at Money in the Bank 2011.
“I’m flabbergasted at that,” Punk said of the timing. “Just how we drew it up. Just how we planned it,” he laughed. “Yeah, what a coincidence. People say that there’s no such thing as coincidence but, that’s pretty remarkable. That’s interesting.”
Punk also responded to criticism from those who felt he had become the type of returning veteran he has previously spoken out against by taking the championship from a full-time star.
“Oh. I won the title. Clean,” Punk responded. “I beat that 41-year-old youngster fair and square in the middle of the ring,” Punk laughed. “I’m guilty of doing what I … what was it?”
Later in the interview, Punk was shown what initially appeared to be social media reactions from several WWE stars, only to quickly realize the posts were AI-generated rather than authentic.
“This is why I don’t f*ck with social media,” Punk said. “This is like A.I. generated. These are fake quotes. Seth (Rollins) did not tweet this, Becky (Lynch) did not tweet this. This is a double-edged sword about most people in our business but especially me, and I do not say this lightly, these are mentally ill people.”
Punk continued by discussing the dangers of misinformation online and why he no longer pays attention to social media.
“I couldn’t imagine making up fake tweets… But I think the problem, and it’s not just in our business, I think it’s a societal thing is people will instantly see that and they believe it, and I don’t know how to change people’s minds about that, which is why I lean into ‘I don’t care about changing anybody’s mind about that,’” Punk said. “I’m in a business of toying with people’s emotions so if somebody’s gonna read that and they’re gonna believe it, that helps me in a way.”
Punk continued, “But, there’s also Phil who walks through parking lots with his wife who has his head on a swivel because those people are out there. It’s interesting.”
Elsewhere during the conversation, Punk revealed he packed on an impressive amount of weight during a recent vacation in Hawaii after indulging in plenty of cheat meals.
“In Hawaii recently, I went overboard (with the cheat meals) to where it got bad. I arrived on the island 204 pounds and I left 224 pounds. I was there for seven days.”
