Awesome CM Punk interview
CM Punk is on the cover of "WWE Magazine's" October issue, which
features an "explosive, controversial" interview with the Second City
Saint. The self-proclaimed "Voice of the Voiceless" was given another
soapbox to voice his concerns with WWE's brain trust, his fellow
wrestlers who deserve a better shot, and whether anything will change
following his return to the sports entertainment organization.
Highlights from the interview are as follows:
In your estimation, what do you feel is wrong with WWE right now, and what would you do to change it?
What's wrong with WWE right now is that there isn't enough youth. Most of the ideas are old. They worked in The Attitude Era
or in the '80's—and I'm not necessarily saying that they're bad or
they're wrong —but they need updating, they need tweaking. There needs
to be some young minds spinning the webs, so to speak. I'm sick of
seeing people who are excellent wrestlers get passed over for people who
have abs or who were good second-string linemen in a European football
league. I think there are a lot of people who, on their own terms, have
made their own personas and perfected their craft simply out of love for
what they do. They're not trying to be bodybuilders or footballs
players who fail miserably and then call their uncle or their dad and
say, "Hey, I'll give that wrestling thing a shot because I suck at
everything else."
Why do you think it's such a strike against guys who—like yourself—are fans but aren't from a sports or bodybuilding background?
Now,
this is complete speculation. I can't even tell you what somebody else
is thinking. I can only say what I think works. And I'm not going to be
right 100 percent of the time just like they're not going to be.
Somewhere along the way I think we lost the Midas touch. This whole
thing became uncool. I think the people who love it aren't going to go
do something else if they get fired. Like Colt Cabana. He's a perfect
example. He is a wrestler. If he gets hired and it doesn't work out,
he's wrestling somewhere else the next day. He's not trying to shoehorn
himself into an accounting job. He's a wrestler. He's always going to be
there. So I just think if you love wrestling sometimes—maybe-you're
punished. You're placed last in line. The attitude is: You're always
going to be here, maybe we can use you later if we need you, but right
now we're going to use this guy because he was good at college football,
but he didn't quite make it in the NFL.
Another one of your gripes is about how the WWE Championship looks. How would you redesign the title? What is the definitive look of that particular championship for you?
Oh
God. How long's this interview? Honestly, I think old Dwayne used to
have a cute little blue cow on his title or something. Then, of course,
Stone Cold had the Smoking Skull
Title. I don't know. I think I could Straight Edge the hell out of that
thing. A couple of "X"s might make it look good. Make it look like a
title should look like, and not make it look like some sort of weird,
rapper bling. I feel the definitive look, though, is what I like to call
"Bret Hart's Title." I think everyone likes to call it the "Winged
Eagle Title." That's a little redundant. I'm pretty sure most eagles
have wings. That's the one that always sticks out in my mind.
This anger with your job has been festering for a while. Was there one moment backstage when you felt you'd had enough?
I
can name one off the top of my head. How about main-eventing a
pay-per-view as the World Heavyweight Champion against Undertaker and
then, a few months later, being in a dark match against R-Truth at WWE
TLC? That's pretty ignorant in my mind. This is the problem. We do this
too many times to too many Superstars. It's a startstop kind of thing.
The company likes to spotlight certain people. Like, "This week, Kofi's
cool," and then, the next week, "We changed out minds we like Dolph this
week." It flip-flops back and forth ad nauseam, and the next thing you
know, the people couldn't give a crap about either guy.
When did the powers that be really begin to take your leaving WWE seriously?
I
told them probably a year out. They would say, "Hey, how about we talk
about your contract?" And I would just say, "No, I don't really feel
like it." And they would say, "Okay, back off. Punk's crabby and
temperamental. We'll get him next week." And the next week it would be,
"Hey, let's talk about it." And then maybe eight or ten months out, it
was, "Hey, I really want to sit down. We really need to sign you a new
deal." And that's when I straight up said, "No, I'm not interested."
Take us back to your title match at WWE Money In The Bank. What did you do differently that day knowing that could have been your last day on the job?
I
don't think I did anything different that day. I'm a man of my word. I
wasn't going to skip out on my contract earlier. I was going to let it
run out. These are the terms I agreed to and the dates I agreed to do,
and I was definitely going to finish up. But I think I talked so much
about everything and everybody that all eyes were on me and it created a
high pressure situation. Thankfully, I thrive very well in those
situations. I'd say I pulled it off. All this stuff I talk about, about
being the best in the world, I certainly proved it that night. The match
went near the 35-minute mark. But I wrestled for 93-minutes one time
back in 2002 or 2003 in a Two-Out-Of-Three-Falls Match.
You mentioned on the Bill Simmons BS Report podcast that you had made the decision to come back and resign at WWE Money In The Bank. Do you think your decision was at all clouded a little bit too much by all the emotion going on that day?
I
can definitely put it aside. I can be a robot if I need to be.
Resigning was something that was on my mind day in and day out whether I
was at the gym or sleeping. I was dreaming about it, I was really
trying to figure out what the best decision was for me and my future.
Call me crazy, but I was also trying to figure out what was the best
decision for the company as a whole. I love what we do. I'm not going to
get along with everybody I work with. I'm certainly not going to agree
with everything all the time, but at the end of the day, I want
everybody voice to be heard. I want this place to succeed. So I had to
weigh my options.
Another thing we noticed is that you used
the "W" word a lot in your tirades these last weeks. how much do you
dislike saying "sports-entertainment"?
I don't hate it as
much as you would think, but I really do think It's ridiculous when
you're not allowed to say "wrestling." At the end of the day, that's
what goes on in that ring. That ring is our stage. What we do on that
stage is we wrestle. I'm not playing grab-ass. I'm out there fighting to
win. Wins and losses mean something. Wrestling happens to be damn
entertaining.
So is it weird to call yourself a "Superstar" as opposed to a wrestler?
I
don't think it's weird. I think we're all Superstars. Absolutely. I
don't think there's anybody else who can be called that. Would you call Brad Pitt a Superstar? Do I think Brad Pitt can do what we do? Absolutely not! Brad Pitt
gets scripts and lines to study months ahead of time and he has a very
controlled setting in which he looks the best he possible can. He has
makeup on, there's lighting, there's people doing the sound and
everything. We go out there on live TV every Monday night and kill it.
That's where the entertainment part comes in. It's more entertaining
then a Brad Pitt
movie. There are no retakes, you know? There's no Take 1, Take 2—"I
screwed that up, let me do it again." If we screw up, we screw up.
That's the entertaining part.
One thing you did change is your entrance music, to Living Colour's "Cult Of Personality." Did you consider anything else?
No,
that was the one. It was a throwback to my Indie days, but it also just
fit. I have tremendous guts, I'd like to say, and it was just a gut
feeling that this was the right thing to do, to change my music now. Did
I like my old song? Absolutely. Was it recognizable? Sure, I had it for
five years. Was it time for a change? Was it a risky thing? Yes and
yes. But ultimately, I think it was the right move. I haven't been able
to get the song out of my head since last Monday. It's a song that came
out in 1989, when I was on my little league team, and now it just jumped
into the iTunes Top 200. That's powerful. That should speak volumes to
the WWE management. They should say, "Holy crap, this kid has the power
to do something like that. Let's see what else he can do."
What's really different now that you're back? What are we really going to see that's not status quo?
I
don't want to ruin any surprises, but I will tell you that when the
Ramones were voted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, there was one
surviving member of the original lineup left alive, and it was Marky.
Marky originally was completely being in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
This is, after all, the establishment that shunned the entire band for
it's entire career, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He was
extremely adamant that, "No, you don't get the privilege of having the
Ramones in your little club." My good friend, Lars Frederickson [of the
band Rancid], got on the phone and said, "Marky listen to me. You almost
have a responsibility to the underground to accept this award and be in
the Hall of Fame to show that you are as big as the Rolling Stones, you
are as big as the Beatles, you're as good as Led Zeppelin, all these
mainstream bands that the Ramones maybe never got credit on the same
level as." And that's kind of how I feel about WWE right now. I'm the
guy who, for all intents and purposes, never should have even made it to
WWE. Then I had roadblock after roadblock thrown in my way. Not only
did I get past those roadblocks, It did it while flipping off the people
who put up those roadblocks. I feel I have a responsibility to the
younger wrestlers on the roster, the ones that aren't signed yet, and
the future of wrestling as a whole, to help make this place better, and
to change this place. I certainly can't change it by sitting on my couch
in Chicago.
Subject: Wrestling Updates 
Sun Sep 04, 2011 8:22 pm
