CM Punk: Vince McMahon Wanted Me To Make Fun Of Stephanie McMahon In Pipe Bomb Promo
On June 27, 2011, CM Punk cut one of the most memorable promos of all time when he broke the fourth wall and dropped the pipe bomb.
Closing the episode of Raw, Punk expressed his frustrations with how things were going in the company and made references to other companies and people who didn’t work for WWE.
Speaking to SPORT1 Wrestling, Punk reflected on the promo and the direction he was given.
“All of it,” he replied when asked how much came from him. “I had to make an outline for Vince and I didn’t say anything I wrote in the outline, I just know that I needed him to agree and then I went out there and said whatever I wanted. I knew what I wanted to say, I knew I wasn’t stepping over the line and I knew nobody was going to be pissed at me. The thing with live television is, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. If I would have asked him to say all that stuff, he would have been like, ‘Don’t mention Brock, don’t mention Paul Heyman.’ Those guys, at the time, were persona non Grata. He would have been like, ‘What the hell is Ring of Honor? Don’t mention New Japan.’ I knew to make it the special piece of art that I wanted it to be, I had to go out there and say all of that. I wrote up a mock draft of it and he said, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ He asked me to add something making fun of Stephanie. I was like, ‘Okay.’ I went out there and I did it and it was good so it doesn’t matter.”
When asked why there was a lack of creative follow up to the promo, Punk replied, “I think because certain people in management wanted it that way and I also think they have a lot of content. They are a content company. It’s a lot and when you have that much, quality slips. It’s constant. You have to be on everything. When Rock came back on the first Raw, I was on like eight segments on that show. That’s oversaturation with a capital O. To rely on me that much and then to say that I wasn’t really that good is a little bit ridiculous, but they like their revisionist history. I think there’s a happy medium somewhere that we’re finding with AEW where everybody doesn’t need to be on every show and we have tons of main event talent that can fill those other gaps.”
In storyline, Punk was suspended from the company for his promo. He would return and defeat John Cena at WWE Money in the Bank to win the WWE Title. Punk left WWE in 2014 but returned to wrestling this past August with AEW.
He is set to face Daniel Garcia on Friday’s episode of AEW Rampage.
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