On the latest episode of “Oh…You Didn’t Know,” Road Dogg recalled when CM Punk criticized The Rock for not being locker room-friendly at WWE Survivor Series in 2011, where The Rock came back to work a tag team match.
Punk said the following to “New York Daily News” following the event:
“He’s not around. It doesn’t help morale when the guy goes right from his limo to the dressing room to the dressing room to the ring. He’s very bourgeois Hollywood.”
Road Dogg believes Punk was going into business for himself and making a storyline.
“I believe Punk was doing two things: going into business for himself in a good way,” James said, “Like starting conversation, and it was basically starting a conversation with the grassroots wrestling fan of this big Hollywood guy went away, now he’s coming back and they want me, the workhorse, to wrestle him.’ You know what I mean? It was the plumber vs. the movie star.
“He needed something, the story needed something and so whether that was true or not, I liked it. I thought it made something there where there might not have been otherwise. And look, Punk is a guy that will cause trouble. He will say things to wrinkle your feathers and he’s done me that way, and they always say, ‘Don’t let anybody push your buttons unless you let him,’ and I agree with that. I let him, but he can do that, so I can understand how Rock being a little stand-offish and Punk, being a little — I guess stand-offish is a nice way to put it too. I can understand there being frustrations of putting that stuff together.”
Road Dogg was later asked by a fan if he ever had wrestlers yell at him while he worked a show. He recalled almost fighting Punk when he was a producer at a live event.
“Me and CM Punk almost went to blows when I was a producer on a live event, and we had to get called into Vince’s office at TV and make nice and shake hands,” James said. “I never thought Punk was what Punk was, but again, I know he is what he is. I know he’s hugely successful in this industry and over. I give him all the credit in the world. I just didn’t get it. I see it now. I still don’t get it, but I see it so I know it’s true, but me and him didn’t see eye to eye. He was the champion at the time and it was about how he was carrying himself as a champion, and I had a discussion with him that he obviously didn’t like being talked to that way, so the next time I saw him, it was not yelling in my face, but I was yelling in his face. I’ll put it at that. He was a lot more professional and calm than I was at the time.”
Quotes via Wrestling Inc