CM Punk was recently interviewed by Chicago’s Rock 95.5 Radio Show, where he revealed why his return to wrestling has been great so far.
Punk said that he fell in love with wrestling again: “It’s a lot of work but it’s rewarding work, I tried to tell myself I can’t care as much as I used to because I just burn out. It’s a big reason why I was gone for 7 years. It’s hard to do what we do at this level without caring, so instead I’ve adapted the philosophy of just leaving everything at work so when I’m not there, I’m not there. So I’m spread very thin, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just when I’m at AEW, I’m there 100%. I’m so on that I need the days off that I have every Wednesday or Friday, things like that to recuperate. The problem is, I’m such an a—–e, I have like four other jobs and I don’t have time to decompress. So is it everything I thought it would be? It’s that, times ten. My barometer of whether it’s all worth it is I look forward to being on a plane. I hate leaving my dog, I hate leaving my wife but I get excited for road trips because it’s one day and I get to do what I’m falling back in love with and I have fun with it. It’s everything I thought it could be and more times ten, it’s challenging but everything that’s worth doing is hard so it’s rewarding.”
He then admitted that MJF comes really close to getting under his skin during their promo battles: “I think if he says stuff that makes me feel a certain way, that’s great because if he pisses me off, if he’s upsetting me, he’s upsetting my fanbase, I think that generates interest and that’s what we want. I have to 100% value someone’s opinion for them to truly hurt my feelings and after doing this for x amount of years, fighting in the UFC, and hearing just a bunch about how I lost, you’ve got to really do something stupid to severally get under my skin. He comes really close though. When you say these things, you should expect to get punched in the face and that’s exactly what’s going to happen [on Dynamite] in the Wintrust Arena.”
About his name being thrown as possible surprise Royal Rumble entrant, he clarified that there was never a chance to see him or any AEW star in WWE: “People were still making sh*t up and saying I was going to be in the Rumble or Cody was going to be in the Rumble or Moxley was going to be in the Rumble. I get it, people want to be excited about it, But if you want to watch us, watch AEW.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
