After being away from pro wrestling since 2014, CM Punk returned in August 2021 for All Elite Wrestling. . He has been part of several feuds and worked with various wrestlers with different styles. He has yet to be pinned during his AEW tenure.
Punk spoke with Abe Kanan of Chicago’s Rock 95.5 Radio Show about a wide range of topics with one of the first questions being if his return to the business is what he expected it would be like.
“It’s a lot of work but it’s rewarding work. I tried to tell myself I can’t care as much as I used to because I just burn out. It’s a big reason why I was gone for 7 years, but it’s hard to do what we do at this level without caring. So instead I’ve adapted the philosophy of just leaving everything at work and when I’m not there, I’m not there. I’m spread very thin, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but It’s just when I’m at AEW, I’m there 100%. I’m so on that I need the days off that I have between every Wednesday or Friday, things like that to recuperate. The problem is I’m such an a*****e I have like four other jobs and I don’t have time to decompress.
“So is it everything I thought it would be? It’s that, ten times ten. My barometer of whether it’s all worth it is I look forward to being on a plane. I hate leaving my dog, I hate leaving my wife…I get excited for road trips because it’s one day and I get to do what I’m falling back in love with and I have fun with it. So yeah, it’s everything I thought it could be and more times ten, it’s challenging but everything that’s worth doing is hard so it’s rewarding.”
Punk will wrestle MJF on tonight’s AEW Dynamite. You can watch the entire interview by clicking on the player below (quotes can be found at the 1:23 mark):
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Rock 95.5 Radio Show with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
