CM Punk appeared on Colin Cowherd’s “The Herd” podcast on FOX Sports Radio on Wednesday. During the interview, Punk commented on working for FOX and not WWE, if he’s concerned about upsetting WWE, and more. You can check out some highlights and audio from the interview below:
On being a FOX employee and not WWE: “Well, I’m not ‘back.’ I work with you now. I’m a FOX employee. You don’t work for the NFL? [Cowherd says he’s in conjunction with the NFL.] Right, so I guess I’m in conjunction. I’m WWE adjacent.”
On not being concerned about upsetting WWE: “I’m not concerned about it and I think that’s honestly the appeal of the job. ‘Were going to pay you to come here and be an analyst and you get to critique the old place that you work at.’ I’m not here just to be a spoiler and here to pour gasoline on anything to set everything on fire. I think deep down I love pro wrestling, and I think it could be better, and I always voiced my concerns and criticisms while I worked there, and now I don’t work there, and now I can’t get in trouble for it.”
On why he thinks WWE is overproduced: “I think everything — It’s pro wrestling. It’s supposed to be a little bit dirty, a little bit grimy. I think everything is overproduced. And I think if I can draw a correlation to the NFL, I think it’s almost the same across the board. Look at Time Square and what it used to be across the street and what it is now. And now, it’s just like this giant thing where it’s just like overproduced and these flashing lights, and I feel like I’m going to have a seizure when I walk down there, you know? Now, they do that with everything, and I think the NFL to an extent is almost the same thing. The referees. What’s a pass interference call? What’s a roughing call now? They’re throwing flags on everything, and it’s just like, let the guys play football. And I feel the same way about WWE. Let them wrestle. Let the men and the women be themselves and let them develop their own character.”
On what WWE needs: “It goes back to let people breathe. Let people be themselves. Let people be less scripted. If everybody is speaking from one voice, one person is writing the script, all the dialogue is the same from just one person, it’s just that, it’s one voice.”
On knowing he was screwed at Survivor Series 2006: “The moment I knew I was screwed, it was my first pay-per-view. It was November 2006. I made may per-view debut at Survivor Series. And I was in the ring with the Hardy Boyz and Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and 18,000 people in Philadelphia were cheering for me. In that moment, I remember looking right at Triple H and I was like, ‘I’m screwed.’ Like, ‘They’re not gonna like this.’”
"I knew I was screwed." – @CMPunk on his #SurvivorSeries debut @TheHerd pic.twitter.com/CMVccuYSqq
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) November 20, 2019
"The women's division is right now the strength of the @WWE." – @ColinCowherd @theherd pic.twitter.com/RP15XdGFfg
— WWE on FOX (@WWEonFOX) November 20, 2019
