The following are the highlights of the latest Colt Cabana “Art of Wrestling” podcast that features former WWE star CM Punk, who in the podcast, talks for the first time about what led to him walking out of WWE this past January. Here are highlights of what Punk says in the podcast:
* Says he is the happiest he has been in years.
* Says at times in the podcast, he will come off bitter, but its OK to be bitter.
* Says this podcast isn’t meant to be an attack on WWE, but him telling his story
* Talks about many different situations where he had issue with Triple H (replacing him with Randy Orton on the 12 Rounds sequel, Triple H coming out of retirement to beat Punk at Night of Champions 2011) because “he thinks I’m a piece of s**t.”
* On Ryback, called him “Steroid guy” and that wrestling him took “20 years off my life.”
* Mentions a number of occasions throughout his WWE career where he went to have surgery on something, then stepping out of the hospital, was called by McMahon to come back to TV, naming coming back from knee surgery to face Ryback in a TLC Match on a January 2013 RAW as one example.
* Says he knew he had the best match at Wrestlemania 29 against Undertaker and was praised for it by all the higher-ups, but knew he didn’t get the money Taker, Triple H, Lesnar, Rock and Cena made for that show.
* Brings up finding a lump on his back during the November 2013 European tour and wanting the WWE doctor, Chris Amann, to cut it out and over the course of his last 2 months with the company, Amann would find reason not to do so, which Punk deemed as being “lazy.”
* Says the day of the Royal Rumble 2014, the lump was purple and badly hurting and gotten bigger, but Amann wouldn’t cut it out because Punk had to work the Rumble.
* Says he suffered a concussion during the Rumble and after, demanded Amann cut out the lump, but Amann again wouldn’t do it because Punk needed to be on antibiotics, which Punk replied back by saying he was on them for a couple months, which led to Punk s**tting his pants a month prior during a match on a Smackdown taping.
* Says that the day after, WWE had him do their concussion test, which he says is bulls**t, because he had headphones on and texted Cabana during it.
* After he passed, WWE wanted him to run the ropes, which he refused to do.
* Says the same day, WWE was pressuring him to sign different things, ignoring his requests to “f**ing help me.”
* Finally, Punk asks to meet with McMahon, Triple H goes to leave and Punk says that he can stay, he wants him to hear this. They have a big, long meeting where Punk lays out his grievances, calmly tears into Triple H and said that he was done and didn’t want to do this anymore. McMahon hugged him goodbye in tears, said Punk was family, Punk shook Triple H’s hand and left out the arena.
* Says he left because of his health, working through broken ribs, injured knees and a concussion in the few months prior to his exit, which Punk goes into not being able to sleep, constantly dry heaving after matches and other details.
* Mentions that his wrestling career is a failure because he never got to main event Wrestlemania and he has come to terms with it. Says it comes down to an “out of touch old man” and his decisions.
* Says he didn’t hold WWE up for money and didn’t ask for anything in his walkout, but was frustrated by the paychecks getting smaller and not getting answers about the pay scale with the advent of the WWE Network. Says everyone was afraid to ask McMahon and even people like Orton asked him what was going on with that stuff.
* Says that after leaving WWE, he went to his wife’s doctor, who immediately looked at the lump on Punk’s back and determined Punk had a MRSA staph infection.
* Says that process of squeezing the lump out of his back was the most painful experience of his entire life.
* Says that when the doctor asked how long Punk had been wrestling with the lump, Punk said for a couple of months and the doctor replied that Punk “should be dead.” Also mentions that Punk had need specific medications for the infection and the Z-Packs that WWE were giving him were of any help.
* After leaving WWE, McMahon texted him and said he was suspended for two months, but then brings up McMahon during a conference call mentioning that Punk was taking a sabbatical. After his suspension ended, no one in WWE contacted Punk.
* Brings up trying to get his royalty checks from WWE for a number of months and getting the run-around from them.
* Says that on the day of his wedding, in June 2014, he received a FedEx from WWE with termination papers as WWE fired Punk, which Punk says was going “too f**king far.”
* Says that WWE tried to “retro-breach” him of his contract in June, claiming he breached the contract walking out in January and he knew it wouldn’t hold up.
* Brings up hiring a vicious lawyer out of Los Angeles after WWE fired him and claimed breach of contract on him to fight it and in the end, he got a settlement from WWE that got Punk everything he asked for and more, but was not allowed to talk about the details of the settlement.
* Says it was stupid for WWE to advertise him for the WWE 2K15 video game and they will never work together again.
* Says WWE was “terrfied” that Punk, as an independent contractor for a decade, would take them to court and ruin their way of doing business.
* When asked to issue a joint statement with WWE after the settlement was reached, “f**k off.”
* Goes into detail ripping WWE for them using the independent contractor status, bringing up the NFL and their Players Union as an example. Says WWE is doing all of things they are doing now for talent to make themselves look better and preventing wrestlers from saying they aren’t. Says if WWE truly cared about their talent, they would allow the talent to start a union.
* Finally, WWE was worried in the settlement that Punk would go to TNA (they did put in a non-compete clause for UFC, same as Del Rio’s settlement), but Punk’s lawyer replied that Punk “despises” wrestling now and will never wrestle again.
To listen to the full Colt Cabana podcast with Punk, click here.