CM PUNK TALKS DISAPPOINTMENT IN ROCK MATCHES, WORKING WITH PAUL HEYMAN, MIC SKILLS

Below are highlights from CM Punk’s recent appearance on the Busted Open Show on Sirius-XM radio:

On working with Paul Heyman: 

“When they first put us together, I think a lot of people were like, ‘Well, what’s Paul going to do? Punk doesn’t need anybody to talk for him.’ I think just being out there with Paul and I think people see him and me interacting and see how much fun we’re having; there have been so many inappropriate jokes I’ve made in the middle of live television shows to Paul when everybody else is worried about what’s going on in the ring or hitting their cues or other stuff. I’m just out there with my friend goofing off and having fun and I think a lot of the fans see that and it drives them crazy. It just pisses them off for some reason. So Paul adds that dynamic. Here’s these two very unlikable characters and their like the best of friends. There’s a very strange television dynamic going on there. He’s having a blast. He tells me all the time. He loves it. I’m glad I’m a part of it and he’s having so much fun.”

On working with The Rock: 

“I wasn’t happy with those matches. Were they the best they possibly could have been? Yeah, I think so. But I never like anything I do. I also don’t watch anything I do. You can’t look back. I know when I do stuff that’s good and I know when I do stuff that’s bad and I just kind of leave it at that. I don’t know if it was built up to be this huge showdown and I don’t know if it just fell short, I personally, I don’t think they were bad, but maybe something a little bit missing. Maybe I’d change my mind if I actually bothered to go back and watch but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

On his microphone skills: 

“I don’t know. I think that’s something you’re born with. Everyone says it’s the ‘it’ factor. You either have it or you don’t. I don’t know if you can teach it. I don’t know how to teach somebody how to get over in pro wrestling. I think that’s something that you have to cultivate yourself. Nobody ever told me, ‘hey, do this specifically, this is what’s going to work,’ to me, it was just work hard, always try to learn something, listen to the guys who have been there before and take little bits and pieces from everybody else. But nobody was specific like, ‘if you go out there and do this, that’s going to be CM Punk and that’s going to make people go bananas.’ I’ve always been that way. When I was a little kid and getting beat up I would still talk shit, nothing could stop me from talking shit. I was a little punk kid, that’s how the name Punk came about. People didn’t like the music I listened to. People didn’t like my mohawk, I was a little brat.”

On the infamous “pipe bomb” promo: 

“People still don’t get it. It’s funny too now that I’m a bad guy, there’s a lot of people out there that when I was the hero they’re like, ‘Great, he’s great that he said that and went out there and just did it,’ and now that I’m a bad guy they’re like, ‘It was scripted and he’s phony and he’s bullshit.’ The truth of the matter is, I went out there with a live microphone and I said whatever the hell I wanted. But I’m a businessman and I wasn’t about to burn my bridge. I wasn’t about to go out there and just start swearing, but I went out there and aired my grievances. There was a bunch of junk that I wrote that I handed to Vince that he was like, ‘ok, say that,’ and I said none of that. I said whatever the hell I wanted, because I was out the door; I was leaving. I was going home, so I didn’t care. Legit, 100%. Looking back on it, it really was like a magical time because the most powerful thing in the world is when somebody just doesn’t give a fuck; and I didn’t care. What were they going to do? Were they going to fire me? Come on. I was going to Australia the next day. If they fired me I didn’t have to go to Australia the next day. That would’ve been fine with me. But I had no idea, I wasn’t like, ‘this is going to be great and this going to rejuvenate me and my career.’ No, I was just done. I didn’t care.”