CM Punk recently joined AEW and made his debut at Rampage: The First Dance in front of his hometown crowd. There have been speculations regarding his contract which he has not revealed but Billi Bhatti reported on RussosBrand.com that Punk signed a three-year AEW deal for $3 million per year, with an opt out clause after two years. He’s paid twice as much as the former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho, and is paid the same as Edge is in WWE.
CM Punk opens up on WWE
Punk had departed WWE after the Royal Rumble in 2014 after being frustrated with the company. He had also announced that he would not be getting back to pro wrestling but eventually changed his mind. For many years fans have been speculating if he will ever go back to WWE, but it turns out Punk never considered that as an option. Vince McMahon ‘Unceremoniously’ Fires WWE Star
While speaking to Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions, Punk lambasted WWE for its backstage environment and compared it to a shark tank full of bullies, making it clear he did not have a pleasant time in the company. Here is what he said:
“My perspective is, I came up in a place that was a shark tank full of bullies that were protecting their spot. And it wasn’t about what was good or bad or right or wrong. It was, what I did was always bad and always wrong, and there were people who ran the show who told me to my face, ‘I don’t get it’. And I would just be like, ‘Well what the f**k are we doing?’.
If I’m in developmental, and to liken it to playing Triple-A (base)ball, I wanna make it to the Major Leagues. And if I’m hitting home runs, I’m the home run king in Triple-A ball, and I get called up to the Major Leagues and the guy on the team with the most home runs tells the hitting coach and the bench coach and the manager, ‘That guy sucks’, it’s just like, oh, we don’t wanna just win games? I came up around a lot of that, but I also think that’s what made me a cycle-breaker.
Kofi Kingston’s first day on the road, I was like, ‘Hey man, you’re riding with me’, and he was just like, ‘Okay great’. Because I got there and I was already a grown ass man, and I had these other grown ass men picking on me, and I was like, ‘Why is this like high school?’. But that’s the culture, that’s what they want. ‘We want you guys to fight and we want you to want his spot’. And I never wanted anybody’s spot, I wanted my own spot.”
Punk is set to make his AEW in-ring debut against Darby Allin at Sunday’s All Out PPV.
