CM Punk spoke at the Cauliflower Alley Club banquet in Las Vegas this week, accepting the highest honor one can receive from the organization, the Iron Mike Mazurki Award.
The former AEW World Champion (setting aside his current claim as “Real World Champion”) addressed attendes for over 40 minutes, thanking those who he felt helped him succeed in the wrestling industry.
“The business was a lot different when I got in it but the basics and the fundamentals of professional wrestling are the same as they ever were. If it worked in the 1940s, it could work today, you just have to know how to apply it. The basics and the fundamentals of professional wrestling were taught to me by Ace Steel.”
Punk would go on to credit legends like Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, Tracy Smothers, and Harley Race among others who gave him the confidence to succeed, recounting various stories from over the years.
Punk would wrap up his speech by noting the impact of how his legacy affects fans, and seeing it come back around to him:
“What means the most to me now is sharing a locker room and having those kids come up to me and they tell me, and I get emotional when they tell me, and they tell me, ‘I saw you sitting cross-legged on a stage in Las Vegas and that brought me back to wrestling.’ And I see a kid come up to me and they show me a tattoo and it says ‘straight edge’ and they say ‘I’ve never done drugs, smoked, drank because of you.’
And to me, just like the stamp of legends, that means so much to me. And if there’s a reason I’m still doing this, it’s that people come up to you and they say ‘You saved my life.’ It sounds a little far-fetched but…I understand.”
A video of the speech can be viewed below thanks to Sports Guys Talking Wrestling on YouTube.
Source: F4WOnline