CM Punk has given his thoughts on the much lauded unionisation for professional wrestlers movement as well as his thoughts on the third part edict originally handed down by WWE.
When Zelina Vega was released from her WWE contract minutes after tweeting out that she supported unionisation – that was not the reason she was released, it was just a poorly timed tweet – the wrestling world went into a frenzy and talk of a union for performers spread like wildfire.
Wrestlers came out in their droves to support the sentiment of the star and it was reported that she had been in contact with a group who was looking to help her to establish such a rule within the industry.
Now, CM Punk has taken to Rene Paquette’s Oral Sessions Podcast to discuss his view on the movement and where he sees it going.
Talking about how UFC fighters, like professional wrestlers need get together and unionise, the former ECW Champion was put on the spot about what he thought about the prospect and where he saw it going:
“Nothing. No [nothing’s going to happen with it] and it’s because there’s no such thing as, ‘the boys’. It’s a trope, all around the road and these people are our family and like I said, once you’re out of the bubble you don’t hear from anybody anymore. Those people don’t pay your bills. There’s always going to be a handful of people that undercut everybody else just to get ahead a little bit. And there seems to be a lot of people that by nature are boot lickers, they just love the taste. You’re supposed to lick the boot, you’re not supposed to eat the entire thing.”
The conversation bled into the edict WWE originally passed down about third party ventures and how talent were to close their Twitch accounts as well as separate money making schemes. Though the company have since relented, Punk had his own view:
“Ok so this is where I’ll get controversial and piss a lot of people off. I don’t know Xavier Woods. I met him in Atlanta, he was doing a Dark Match one time. He came up and asked me for advice and maybe it was, “hey did you see my match?” I don’t know. He was always a good wrestler, he could always do everything but there wasn’t a character for him. Obviously he’s become a pretty big superstar. He’s big on Twitch, he’s a big video gamer and all that other stuff so I don’t know what’s going on with his Twitch channel so I don’t want to speak out of turn about that, but I just saw he was petitioning to get a job to do G4. Does WWE get money? Why is it ok for him to do that but Zelina Vega can’t have a Twitch? That was always my thing and I think people have labelled me a complainer or a whiny because I would always be the guy that was like, ‘wait, why is so and so able to do this’, because there was always outside interest and not just for me. I remember one particular person got a role playing a wrestler because they knew someone who was producing this tv show on a certain channel then when it got shuffled to the office, all of a sudden it was, ‘no you can’t do that’. Then the next thing you know John Cena’s doing it.”
The interview, which can be heard at the link above, carried on to Punk’s thoughts on the bigger WWE stars getting opportunities that were meant for the smaller talent as well as parallels between Vince McMahon and his UFC opposite, Dana White.
CM Punk left WWE in stylish fashion, walking out of the company with no regrets twenty four hours after the 2014 Royal Rumble. Though he has returned to guest host WWE Backstage on FOX, the talent has expressed zero interest in returning to the company in a competitive capacity.
Credit for the interview: Oral Sessions Podcast