CM Punk made his promotional debut at Friday’s AEW Rampage.
Punk was a guest on Monday’s episode of the Kap & J. Hood show on ESPN 1000 Chicago. He had this to say about the debut:
“Over the last seven years? I’ll take it back further, honestly. I was discussing this with a couple of my friends,” Punk stated, “and that might have been the greatest moment, the greatest night of my career.”
“Just the entire night couldn’t have gone more perfect, you know? The way we set it up as the ‘worst kept secret,’ selling out the United Center on a rumor that I was going to be there, never announced, never advertised, it shows the connection to the fanbase that AEW has. They get it. They want to be involved, they want to be entertained, they want to go to shows and have a good time. We didn’t feel the need to beat them over the head [with it] to get a TV rating. Don’t get me wrong, executives at TNT love their ratings, but to me, pro wrestling has always been about moments and getting people to feel something.
“It was a perfect storm, perfect night. The way I debuted, everybody being super-positive backstage, I met so many new people, having my family with me, I could go on and on. It was the perfect night and the perfect moment for so many reasons, and I’m just talking personally. Publicly, I think it’s a smashing success. A lot of people love YouTube views and likes and clicks, all that stuff, but that doesn’t really matter to me all that much, but it’s a big deal to a lot of people. I know the metrics and the analytics people love that kind of stuff, but to me, it was just about making people happy.
“I gave people ice cream just like [former Red Sox and Cubs pitcher] was giving people beer when he was leaving the city. I’m back and I want to show the fans how thankful I am that they waited for seven years.”
