In 2011 a lot was different. The Harry Potter movies came to an end, Libyan’s overthrew their dictator while America sought out another would be one in Pakistan, and Charlie Sheen wasn’t quite yet into his crazy pants. I was also still a teenager stumbling through my studies and trying to find my footing in the social hierarchy I had previously mentioned in another post as ‘turbulent’.
It wasn’t really all that special of a year to be honest, for me there have been many more years in my life of vastly greater importance to me, but it holds some importance all the same due to one event.
As a child I had always been a casual fan of professional wrestling. There was something about it that caught my eye every so often. To describe it to you as best I can it’s the most incredibly well choreographed ‘fight’ (and it really is a fight since you can’t not end up being hurt even if you are supposed to pull your punches) between two people that want nothing more than to tell a story as athletes and as actors. That’s wrestling at its bare minimum. Its two people wanting to tell you a story. It’s like watching theatre but with extra steps.
I’ve had my favourites in wrestling, currently those would be Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Tomasso Ciampa, Edge, Christian Cage, AJ Styles, Asuka, Kevin Owens, Tetsuyo Naito and…look I could go on for a while so you get the idea. I still watch it then to this day.
In the past I had also admired Eddie Guerrero, Rob Van Dam, Chris Jericho, The Hardy Boys, and Undertaker…again, you get the idea. I’m a fan.
However in 2011 I didn’t really have a favourite. That being said I do remember I was enjoying some of the stuff that two guys were doing on WWE’s RAW programme whenever I dipped my toe back into wrestling. They were two that I didn’t necessary pick as my favourites but they were definitely in the conversation for producing some of my favourite matches and moments. I respected what they did. One was more of a talker than the other and I at least liked how he came across when he spoke.
They had a match between them, the more talkative of the two lost and I felt a bit bad for him. Even though he was meant to play the ‘bad guy’ (or ‘Heel’ if you want to use some wrestling terminology) I still knew that it was a performance. I’m sure he wasn’t that bad of a person in real life and to make it worse he hadn’t really got to win many matches recently. I should also mention because it’s choreographed that wrestling matches have a pre-determined winner, so a string of loses sucks for any wrestler.
So I thought I’d follow him into his next match as he got my attention and maybe even some sympathy from me, and then he said he was going to leave the company. ‘Damn’ I remember telling myself, ‘I just started to like this guy and now he’s leaving? Why? He had a great feud I remember with Jeff Hardy and the other day with Randy. Why leave now?’ Then he attacked the champion John Cena, sat on top of the stage, and I went from a casual fan to loving professional wrestling.
If you hadn’t already guessed then how the hell haven’t you? It’s in the title, this is just a neat introduction I thought up, but anyway this guy I’ve alluded to was called CM Punk.
Strange name right? I couldn’t tell you back then what the ‘CM’ stood for but when he spoke from being cross-legged on the foot of the stage, I felt like maybe this was real and that maybe I understood it. He ranted on about the mistreatment of the hard-worker as opposed to the company guy who kissed arse for a living, about being mismanaged and people not understanding him, about friends he had seen lose their jobs and about why he felt he had to leave. And he said a lot that most would have been afraid to say out loud.
The real statements that jumped out to me the most were ‘I’ve been the best ever since day one when I walked into this company and I have been vilified and hated since that day because Paul Heyman saw something in me’, ‘I hate this idea that you’re the best’, ‘I’ve grabbed so many imaginary brass rings that it’s finally dawned on me that it’s just that they’re completely imaginary’, and finally the most memorable ‘maybe this company would be better after Vince McMahon (the boss) is dead’.
That last one got me to let out an audible gasp. Like the ones you see only in movies when a character is killed off suddenly.
It felt like this man was saying everything I had ever wanted to say to someone who got in my face, mistreated me or made me feel lesser than them. It felt amazing just to watch someone say it, living vicariously through them on the television screen. Real or not I didn’t care, this was how I felt at times and that this guy felt seemingly ten times over. And he didn’t care if you heard it.
From then on I kept watching and he kept up my intrigue the entire time. I also thought that at times his in-ring moves got better, or maybe I was just appreciating them more as I watched. I mean he wasn’t the very best at wrestling moves but he made each feel as though it meant something. No wasted motion, all of it mattered to the process of beating your opponent. He made it fun too, taunting the opponents and shouting at them how he was ‘the best’. All confidence, and no apologies for it.
He had also mentioned often other wrestlers and the places I could find them, so naturally I followed that information and began to watch them too. It was like he had opened up a forbidden door and I had leapt right into it and discovered people I wasn’t meant to watch (not like that, get your head out of the gutter).
The point is he became my go to for wrestling and while others raved about the big names, the hulking giants and maybe even downplayed him to me as ‘just a good talker’ and ‘some tattooed skinny dude’, I didn’t care. That was who I was watching, because above it all he was in love with professional wrestling, possibly even life itself and it was infectious.
He also got me to appreciate other wrestlers employed on the same show. I’d argue it was because of him that I liked the more technical and smaller wrestlers after that. The guys who weren’t the strongest but the smartest, those who cared about their movements and who had a giant list of moves they could do in a match at any time. I started to find them more exciting because like CM Punk you didn’t know how the match would end.
But I guess we can’t all have nice things last, and in 2014 CM Punk left wrestling, and seemingly for good.
He had his valid reasons for leaving but we’re not here to discuss that, I’m here to talk about what came after and what happened just yesterday.
See afterwards I didn’t stop watching and loving professional wrestling. If anything it got stronger, to the point I tried to gain as much weight as I could to maybe train to become a wrestler (it didn’t work out. My body didn’t like the excess pounds, I didn’t train properly and it made me miserable so I didn’t even make it to a ring). I began watching more wrestling however. I watched New Japan Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Noah!, ICW, TNA/Impact Wrestling, if it had a weekly show I at least watched an episode.
Still, even then I felt like I couldn’t not check in on the past.
After wrestling CM Punk decided to try his hand at writing comic books. He wrote this great story for Drax The Destroyer (you know the guy from Guardians of The Galaxy that is played by Dave Bautista in the movies. Who was also a wrestler) and I thought that if he didn’t come back I could take some happiness that he was still out there doing whatever he wanted. Still living life how he wants it, still an admirable person to have be a part of your teenage memories. Even if I didn’t know the guy personally or what he’s like as a person outside of the ring.
He also tried to fight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) with little to no experience of mixed martial arts. He lost both his fights. I was sad for him but kind of expected it.
After some movies, commentary for sporting events and TV shows I lost track of CM Punk. I drifted away from him and started to focus on other things that interested me but I can’t say I ever forgot about the guy. He even turned up on a panel show to grill some of the storylines WWE were making their wrestlers perform.
Then yesterday happened, and I felt compelled to write this.
CM Punk returned to professional wrestling on August 20th 2021 after 7 years of not competing and 7 years of saying he would never wrestle again.
He walked into an AEW (All Elite Wrestling) show called ‘Rampage’ in his hometown of Chicago, got into the ring, spoke for about 10 minutes and then left before saying he would wrestle one of their up and coming star athletes, Darby Allin.
Look I don’t know who CM Punk is. I don’t know who the guy who plays the wrestling character of CM Punk is. I’ve never met CM Punk, had a conversation with him or even seen him wrestle live. But when he stepped back into that ring I weirdly cried like you would if a relative had miraculously come back to life. Like someone I did know had recovered from 7 years of sickness and was ready to do what they loved again. It made me feel hopeful that even when people beat you down to the point you don’t want to do what you love anymore that maybe the thing you love won’t give up on you.
It made me feel like I was 15 again, full of hope and fandom, pride, vigour, with ideas running in my head that maybe what I loved hadn’t given up on me either. So I guess I can blame him for reaffirming my personal mission of doing more with my time, but also for going back to the things I loved before and possibly getting into professional wrestling either as a wrestler or as a manager maybe (although I will stick to my own weight and not balloon up like the last time!)
But above all else his return to wrestling reminded me that dreams don’t die by anyone’s hand except for their creators, and I’ve never been happier for a guy that I don’t know to come back to his dream and what he loved then I am for CM Punk.
Dan Abides 