Black Widow
11-09-2008, 06:12 PM
"WWE is like watching a live rock band on stage beating each other up while at the same time performing an improv comedy routine."
This is how former WWE World Heavyweight Champion (and one-half of the current tag team champs) CM Punk describes the world of pro wrestling to me and it's one of the best summations of the "sport" I've ever heard. "People like to say we offer a little bit of everything, but we offer a lot of everything," he continues. "It's different than anything else out there because you get so emotionally involved in the characters. There's a story to it, everyone has their own story, and that individuality is really what sets it apart from everything else."
And it's that story, more importantly the CM Punk story, that has me on the phone with one of WWE's most passionate young performers, as he is one of only five singles stars to be featured with his own storyline in the video game WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009.
So I figure, who better to play through career mode with than the man whose career I'm controlling on my TV?
If I'm going to win the game and succeed on my Road to Wrestlemania, I could at least use some inside knowledge to the real life of CM Punk, maybe some scouting reports on my polygonal adversaries. Maybe a straight answer from the straight edge superstar about what CM really means.
Turn on the game and cyber CM starts talking straight edge. That's when I ask the real wrestler for the story behind the tats, the story behind the lifestyle that defines not only his character, but his real day-to-day life.
"I've always been straight edge, I just didn't know it," says Punk. "I never smoked or drank or did drugs. Through music, I found out that there was this whole culture of people who were just like me and they called themselves straight edge. When I found out, I was like, cool, that's me. It was something that made sense. I had a label for myself finally, and I ran with it. There's a lot of pride in me with being straight edge. I have it tattooed on my body. And once I found out that there was a name for how I was, my life changed.
"I'm one of those old souls and I had just seen so much stupid stuff at a young age at parties. I always ran with an older crowd and my dad was an alcoholic, so I just never saw the reason to use a crutch. I'm a meet my problems head-on kind of guy. If there's a problem, I want to take care of it. I don't need to drink to forget about it or get high. That's just not me."
Punk, who grew up in the Chicago area wanting to be a wrestler, started pursuing his career with a dream and a computer, looking up local wrestling schools on the Internet.
"When I was 15 watching pay-per-views with my buddies, we'd go out in the backyard and roll around, goof off, and hit each other in the head with lawn chairs," says Punk. "It's just in my blood. I became obsessed with becoming a pro wrestler, then when I found a school, I ended up paying a bunch of money to get beat up every day. I was off and running."
And we were off and running in CM's cyber career in the video game. Punk, who now is a staple of the Raw roster, is a featured ECW performer in the game's storyline, a show where Punk was introduced to WWE audiences as he was able to cut his teeth on the stylized violence (and improv comedy) that is WWE. There are only 82 days to Wresltemania and the storyline in the game features the dramatic build to WWE's Super Bowl of pay-per-views. First feud in the game is actually against an opponent Punk has yet to face in the ring for real, Jeff Hardy. And considering their extremely different lifestyles, this could be a money main event in future shows. "I'm positive you'll see this feud in the future," says Punk. But for now, let's concentrate on the game.
"Jeff is the biggest risk taker in WWE, so I'd play conservative," Punk explains, providing pointers on winning my first match. "I would sit back and wait for him to take that risk, then move out of the way. When he falls, kick his butt."
And Hardy takes even more risks in the game than he does in real life. When he tries to attack me from the air, I do just like Punk says, move out of the way and stomp. I pick Hardy up, kick him in the head, and after a few minutes, it's time for Punk's patented Go to Sleep finisher.
Says Punk: "The Go To Sleep is perfect for me because I use my feet and my knees unlike any WWE superstar in history. You pick that guy up, and the fans know what's coming. You boost him over your head and knee him on the way down. It's gravity. It's poetic. You knock them out and they go to sleep. There's just something about that that's me."
And that's 1-0 for me ... er, Punk. Cyber Punk, that is.
After winning the match, Punk is whisked off in a private jet to the next event. When they show the arena, we're inside Punk's elaborate dressing room (complete with star on door). Inside he's got a computer, some trucker hats, weights, and two shirts. Unfortunately for the real Punk, most nights the locker room is nothing like this, but he doesn't seem to mind. "As long as it has running water and it's warm, I'm happy," he laughs. "If I had a dressing room that nice, I'd share it with the other wrestlers," Punk adds. "That's too nice for just me."
In the game, cyber Punk is shown walking around backstage now, and he just happens to run into Jeff Hardy. Lucky for WWE the cameras also just happened to be there to catch the action. After a brief confrontation, the game's ECW champ, Tommy Dreamer appears and books an Extreme Rules match between Punk and Hardy, with the winner getting a title shot at the Royal Rumble. It's on.
But the real Punk has a couple of words of advice on getting hit with weapons, like "protect yourself" and "it hurts".
"Honestly, I don't like getting hit with anything, but getting sent through a table is no picnic," says Punk. "I think people don't take into account how the table shatters, you get splinters, and you wind up chewing on wood for some reason. It's like when you go to the beach and you get sand everywhere, after you get sent through a table, there is just wood everywhere. There are screws that end up sticking in your leg, so you end up bleeding. It's not fun. People think the table just cracks and that's it, but it's a lot more painful than that."
Point taken. Luckily for cyber Punk, THQ hasn't implemented table screws in their game yet, so I'm not worried. And the funny thing is, you're given a bonus goal in the match to put Hardy through a table. I end up hitting Hardy with chairs and a guitar to bust him open, but I pin him before putting him through the table. I win the match, but miss out on the reward of completing the side goal (which could be unlocking a hidden wrestler).
Before Punk gets his shot at Dreamer, though, he gets booked in a tag team match where Hardy is now his partner as they take on John Morrison and Elijah Burke. Morrison even leaves Punk a voice message in the game threatening him, trying to psyche him out before the match. Funny thing is, Hardy claims to be hurt due to our Extreme Rules slobberknocker and doesn't want to be tagged in, so Punk basically goes it alone and picks up another win after making Morrison Go to Sleep.
Next episode of ECW and now Dreamer wants you to watch his back as he faces Burke. Here, Punk basically stands outside the ring and beats on Morrison (who is in Burke's corner), for continuing to leave messed up messages on his phone. After a few minutes, Morrison jumps in the ring and starts beating on Dreamer. This is where it looks like Punk might turn heel and hit the champ, teaming up with the thug team of Burke and Morrison, but Punk plays it cool and protects Dreamer, setting up the title match at the Royal Rumble.
The championship encounter is another Extreme Rules match, a perfect fit for Dreamer, who is nicknamed the "Innovator of Violence".
"Tommy is a nut," Punk laughs. "Fans would hand him steel pipes or sewer grates or whatever and he'd smack people in the face with it. Dreamer and I always joke around about how he's my mentor and I'm his protégé. I've actually known Tommy for years and years and years and he's always helped me out tremendously."
Unfortunately for Dreamer, he's no match for cyber Punk, who grabs weapons from fans sitting ringside and smacks Dreamer over and over in the head until it is time to hit the Go to Sleep for the title. CM Punk is the new ECW champion. But there's something wrong with Dreamer. Maybe I hit him a few times too many with the steel chairs because now the medical personnel have entered the ring and they're carrying Dreamer out. He's hurting so much, I almost feel bad for using so many weapons on the poor polygon.
When the game flashes forward to the next episode of ECW, Stephanie McMahon is out and explains how Dreamer is out with a punctured lung. She also says that she is abolishing Extreme Rules matches from now on and is stripping Punk of the title. Say what!?! She says Punk is too extreme for ECW and that there will be a tournament to see who the next champ will be. That might have been the shortest title reign in ECW history.
Punk faces Morrison in the first round of the tournament, a wrestler the real Punk calls one of the best athletes in WWE. "You can't take him lightly because he'll screw you up," Punk tells me. "He is someone who hasn't reached his full potential yet, so you just need to be tenacious if you want to beat him."
I go after him from the opening bell and never let up to take the first round victory. But then something strange happens. Tommy Dreamer is back and he tells me that I should get disqualified on purpose in my next match against Elijah Burke. He tells me I need to prove a point to the McMahon's and go extreme. For some reason I agree. I lock on a submission hold and refuse to let go during the refs count and he signals for the bell. So much for my second title reign. Oh well, luckily for me I run into Burke later on backstage where he seems to be pigging out on a diet of Chinese food and pizza. Burke calls Punk a "greasy, wannabe rebel" so you do what you've been trained to, slam Burke's head into the table and hit him repeatedly with a garbage can. What a job.
Burke goes on to win the title at the next pay-per-view, then challenges Punk to a Last Man Standing match for the belt. This is a match where you win by beating your opponent up so bad, he can't get up by the count of 10. Seems like a perfect match for a guy who likes to knee people in the head so hard it forces them to take naps in the ring.
As for being called "greasy" and a "wannabe rebel", the real Punk says he's been called a lot worse in real life. How does he get past all the haters? "I think that has a lot to do with what I call PMA, positive mental attitude," he says. "A whole bunch of people told me that if I went to WWE, I'd never make it. But it's like I never heard them. I never listened. To me, I'm exactly where I belong. I feel like I was born to do this. Whatever your walk in life is, you pick what you want to be, then go ahead and be the best one."
Unfortunately for cyber Punk, his quest to be the best gets a little derailed in the Last Man Standing match, as Tazz, the old-school ECW vet and one of Tommy Dreamer's best friends, gets so mad about you sending his buddy to the hospital, that he interferes in your match and chokes you out to the point where you can't get up. Burke wins, and it looks like Tazz may have just come out of retirement.
Punk likes this new twist to the storyline. "Tazz was awesome because he had such a presence that nobody realized that he wasn't the biggest guy in the world," he explains. "You hear fans talk about Tazz and you'd think he was 6-8, 350-pounds. That's an accomplishment. He just had such a strong presence and personality."
As the story progresses, you do get another title shot against Burke, and the real Punk has some advice for me before my match: "Elijah's not a risk taker, but he gets really impatient in the ring and tries to take shortcuts. I always found a high kick to the head scrambles his brain a bit, so I recommend that."
And since nothing says championship like scrambling a little brain, I do just that, repeatedly kicking Burke in his head, then finishing him off with the GTS.
CM Punk is your new ECW champion! The crowd starts chanting Punk's name and Tommy Dreamer even comes down to raise his arms in victory.
This brings an angry Tazz and Morrison to the ring who are looking to start a fight. Burke and Tazz then challenge Punk and Dreamer to a tag team match at Wrestlemania. Stephanie McMahon is out and says that since Tazz made the challenge, Punk gets to pick the match type: Cage, Extreme Rules, or Tables.
I decide to go with Extreme Rules and it's time for Wrestlemania.
"Wrestlemania is extremely intense," Punk tells me. Last year, Punk made a huge name for himself by winning the Money in the Bank ladder match in front of 80,000 people. "I came to the ring and there were still a couple of other guys who needed to do their entrances. I was trying to soak it all in, look at some faces in the crowd, get some focus points, and it was just so super cool."
Speaking of making a name for himself, it was time once again to play "What does CM stand for?" Punk loves messing with people about his name (he's told fans it stands for everything from Cookie Monster to Charles Manson), and he always has a new answer for me whenever I bring up the topic. Last time we talked about it, he told me a story of how it stood for Chick Magnet. "I don't know where you got that from," Punk laughs, even though he's the one who told me. "CM has always stood for one thing: Chicago Made. Chick Magnet? That's preposterous. Girls don't like me. I was born and raised in Chicago. The city made me. Punk is just because I've always been a smart-mouthed, wise-ass punk. I still am. I was the guy, if a bunch of football players were messing with one of my friends, I'd walk over there and spit in their face."
"Are you just messing with me now?" I ask
"Could be," he laughs.
The mystery continues (and he knows I'll ask him again next time I see him).
Funny thing is, Punk thinks he has one of the worst names in wrestling. "I think CM Punk is one of the worst names in the business, but I am what I am," he says. As for the other bad names in wrestling history? "I'm a big fan of unnecessary alliteration. I'm a big comic book nerd, so it always tickled me that everybody's name is like Peter Parker or Lana Lang. So in wrestling, Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese was always a really good bad name."
"Whose fault are the bad names, the talent of the creative team?" I ask.
"I think it boils down to being the wrestler's fault. You don't always have to say yes to everything. You can say: 'No, I'm not a Rooster.' It is intimidating and you don't want to screw up or burn bridges, so a lot of guys, if they hand you something, they just try and take that ball and run with it."
Luckily for me, this isn't the Red Rooster's Road to Wrestlemania or I might be prepping for a another "classic" against the Brooklyn Brawler.
Anyway, it's time for Wrestlemania and Punk is the first to grab a barbed wire bat and beat Tazz senseless. By the time the match reaches its climax, all four participants are a bloody mess. At the end, Punk sets up a steel chair in the ring, jumps off of the chair and back flips onto Tazz to send him back into retirement.
But Wrestlemania isn't over. Out of respect to Tommy Dreamer and his legacy, Punk grants him one last shot at the title. Luckily for Punk, Dreamer is a complete mess after the tag match, so after a couple of kicks and a GTS, Dreamer is out and Punk is the last man standing at Wrestlemania.
Will we see Punk walk out of Mania this year with any gold or will we see his storyline with Randy Orton continue to progress until the big event?
"I love to beat up Randy at Raw, at live events, at overseas tours, Wrestlemania, whatever," Punk says even though it's a bit early to tell where his real storyline will be headed by then. "I'd like to think I'd be done beating up Randy by Wrestlemania, but if not, I'd love a cage match against Randy at Wrestlemania to settle the feud.
"I don't think guys are really defined until they get their second title run and that's what I'm looking to do. The Royal Rumble would be a good place to start."
Looks like CM Punk's real road to Wrestlemania has more than a few paths that it could take, and for a wrestler who is also such a huge fan like Punk, he wouldn't want it any other way.
"You never know what's going to happen in this business, whether it's the story on Raw or in the video game," Punk says. "But at least in the video game I can still get up after a choke slam."
ESPN
This is how former WWE World Heavyweight Champion (and one-half of the current tag team champs) CM Punk describes the world of pro wrestling to me and it's one of the best summations of the "sport" I've ever heard. "People like to say we offer a little bit of everything, but we offer a lot of everything," he continues. "It's different than anything else out there because you get so emotionally involved in the characters. There's a story to it, everyone has their own story, and that individuality is really what sets it apart from everything else."
And it's that story, more importantly the CM Punk story, that has me on the phone with one of WWE's most passionate young performers, as he is one of only five singles stars to be featured with his own storyline in the video game WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009.
So I figure, who better to play through career mode with than the man whose career I'm controlling on my TV?
If I'm going to win the game and succeed on my Road to Wrestlemania, I could at least use some inside knowledge to the real life of CM Punk, maybe some scouting reports on my polygonal adversaries. Maybe a straight answer from the straight edge superstar about what CM really means.
Turn on the game and cyber CM starts talking straight edge. That's when I ask the real wrestler for the story behind the tats, the story behind the lifestyle that defines not only his character, but his real day-to-day life.
"I've always been straight edge, I just didn't know it," says Punk. "I never smoked or drank or did drugs. Through music, I found out that there was this whole culture of people who were just like me and they called themselves straight edge. When I found out, I was like, cool, that's me. It was something that made sense. I had a label for myself finally, and I ran with it. There's a lot of pride in me with being straight edge. I have it tattooed on my body. And once I found out that there was a name for how I was, my life changed.
"I'm one of those old souls and I had just seen so much stupid stuff at a young age at parties. I always ran with an older crowd and my dad was an alcoholic, so I just never saw the reason to use a crutch. I'm a meet my problems head-on kind of guy. If there's a problem, I want to take care of it. I don't need to drink to forget about it or get high. That's just not me."
Punk, who grew up in the Chicago area wanting to be a wrestler, started pursuing his career with a dream and a computer, looking up local wrestling schools on the Internet.
"When I was 15 watching pay-per-views with my buddies, we'd go out in the backyard and roll around, goof off, and hit each other in the head with lawn chairs," says Punk. "It's just in my blood. I became obsessed with becoming a pro wrestler, then when I found a school, I ended up paying a bunch of money to get beat up every day. I was off and running."
And we were off and running in CM's cyber career in the video game. Punk, who now is a staple of the Raw roster, is a featured ECW performer in the game's storyline, a show where Punk was introduced to WWE audiences as he was able to cut his teeth on the stylized violence (and improv comedy) that is WWE. There are only 82 days to Wresltemania and the storyline in the game features the dramatic build to WWE's Super Bowl of pay-per-views. First feud in the game is actually against an opponent Punk has yet to face in the ring for real, Jeff Hardy. And considering their extremely different lifestyles, this could be a money main event in future shows. "I'm positive you'll see this feud in the future," says Punk. But for now, let's concentrate on the game.
"Jeff is the biggest risk taker in WWE, so I'd play conservative," Punk explains, providing pointers on winning my first match. "I would sit back and wait for him to take that risk, then move out of the way. When he falls, kick his butt."
And Hardy takes even more risks in the game than he does in real life. When he tries to attack me from the air, I do just like Punk says, move out of the way and stomp. I pick Hardy up, kick him in the head, and after a few minutes, it's time for Punk's patented Go to Sleep finisher.
Says Punk: "The Go To Sleep is perfect for me because I use my feet and my knees unlike any WWE superstar in history. You pick that guy up, and the fans know what's coming. You boost him over your head and knee him on the way down. It's gravity. It's poetic. You knock them out and they go to sleep. There's just something about that that's me."
And that's 1-0 for me ... er, Punk. Cyber Punk, that is.
After winning the match, Punk is whisked off in a private jet to the next event. When they show the arena, we're inside Punk's elaborate dressing room (complete with star on door). Inside he's got a computer, some trucker hats, weights, and two shirts. Unfortunately for the real Punk, most nights the locker room is nothing like this, but he doesn't seem to mind. "As long as it has running water and it's warm, I'm happy," he laughs. "If I had a dressing room that nice, I'd share it with the other wrestlers," Punk adds. "That's too nice for just me."
In the game, cyber Punk is shown walking around backstage now, and he just happens to run into Jeff Hardy. Lucky for WWE the cameras also just happened to be there to catch the action. After a brief confrontation, the game's ECW champ, Tommy Dreamer appears and books an Extreme Rules match between Punk and Hardy, with the winner getting a title shot at the Royal Rumble. It's on.
But the real Punk has a couple of words of advice on getting hit with weapons, like "protect yourself" and "it hurts".
"Honestly, I don't like getting hit with anything, but getting sent through a table is no picnic," says Punk. "I think people don't take into account how the table shatters, you get splinters, and you wind up chewing on wood for some reason. It's like when you go to the beach and you get sand everywhere, after you get sent through a table, there is just wood everywhere. There are screws that end up sticking in your leg, so you end up bleeding. It's not fun. People think the table just cracks and that's it, but it's a lot more painful than that."
Point taken. Luckily for cyber Punk, THQ hasn't implemented table screws in their game yet, so I'm not worried. And the funny thing is, you're given a bonus goal in the match to put Hardy through a table. I end up hitting Hardy with chairs and a guitar to bust him open, but I pin him before putting him through the table. I win the match, but miss out on the reward of completing the side goal (which could be unlocking a hidden wrestler).
Before Punk gets his shot at Dreamer, though, he gets booked in a tag team match where Hardy is now his partner as they take on John Morrison and Elijah Burke. Morrison even leaves Punk a voice message in the game threatening him, trying to psyche him out before the match. Funny thing is, Hardy claims to be hurt due to our Extreme Rules slobberknocker and doesn't want to be tagged in, so Punk basically goes it alone and picks up another win after making Morrison Go to Sleep.
Next episode of ECW and now Dreamer wants you to watch his back as he faces Burke. Here, Punk basically stands outside the ring and beats on Morrison (who is in Burke's corner), for continuing to leave messed up messages on his phone. After a few minutes, Morrison jumps in the ring and starts beating on Dreamer. This is where it looks like Punk might turn heel and hit the champ, teaming up with the thug team of Burke and Morrison, but Punk plays it cool and protects Dreamer, setting up the title match at the Royal Rumble.
The championship encounter is another Extreme Rules match, a perfect fit for Dreamer, who is nicknamed the "Innovator of Violence".
"Tommy is a nut," Punk laughs. "Fans would hand him steel pipes or sewer grates or whatever and he'd smack people in the face with it. Dreamer and I always joke around about how he's my mentor and I'm his protégé. I've actually known Tommy for years and years and years and he's always helped me out tremendously."
Unfortunately for Dreamer, he's no match for cyber Punk, who grabs weapons from fans sitting ringside and smacks Dreamer over and over in the head until it is time to hit the Go to Sleep for the title. CM Punk is the new ECW champion. But there's something wrong with Dreamer. Maybe I hit him a few times too many with the steel chairs because now the medical personnel have entered the ring and they're carrying Dreamer out. He's hurting so much, I almost feel bad for using so many weapons on the poor polygon.
When the game flashes forward to the next episode of ECW, Stephanie McMahon is out and explains how Dreamer is out with a punctured lung. She also says that she is abolishing Extreme Rules matches from now on and is stripping Punk of the title. Say what!?! She says Punk is too extreme for ECW and that there will be a tournament to see who the next champ will be. That might have been the shortest title reign in ECW history.
Punk faces Morrison in the first round of the tournament, a wrestler the real Punk calls one of the best athletes in WWE. "You can't take him lightly because he'll screw you up," Punk tells me. "He is someone who hasn't reached his full potential yet, so you just need to be tenacious if you want to beat him."
I go after him from the opening bell and never let up to take the first round victory. But then something strange happens. Tommy Dreamer is back and he tells me that I should get disqualified on purpose in my next match against Elijah Burke. He tells me I need to prove a point to the McMahon's and go extreme. For some reason I agree. I lock on a submission hold and refuse to let go during the refs count and he signals for the bell. So much for my second title reign. Oh well, luckily for me I run into Burke later on backstage where he seems to be pigging out on a diet of Chinese food and pizza. Burke calls Punk a "greasy, wannabe rebel" so you do what you've been trained to, slam Burke's head into the table and hit him repeatedly with a garbage can. What a job.
Burke goes on to win the title at the next pay-per-view, then challenges Punk to a Last Man Standing match for the belt. This is a match where you win by beating your opponent up so bad, he can't get up by the count of 10. Seems like a perfect match for a guy who likes to knee people in the head so hard it forces them to take naps in the ring.
As for being called "greasy" and a "wannabe rebel", the real Punk says he's been called a lot worse in real life. How does he get past all the haters? "I think that has a lot to do with what I call PMA, positive mental attitude," he says. "A whole bunch of people told me that if I went to WWE, I'd never make it. But it's like I never heard them. I never listened. To me, I'm exactly where I belong. I feel like I was born to do this. Whatever your walk in life is, you pick what you want to be, then go ahead and be the best one."
Unfortunately for cyber Punk, his quest to be the best gets a little derailed in the Last Man Standing match, as Tazz, the old-school ECW vet and one of Tommy Dreamer's best friends, gets so mad about you sending his buddy to the hospital, that he interferes in your match and chokes you out to the point where you can't get up. Burke wins, and it looks like Tazz may have just come out of retirement.
Punk likes this new twist to the storyline. "Tazz was awesome because he had such a presence that nobody realized that he wasn't the biggest guy in the world," he explains. "You hear fans talk about Tazz and you'd think he was 6-8, 350-pounds. That's an accomplishment. He just had such a strong presence and personality."
As the story progresses, you do get another title shot against Burke, and the real Punk has some advice for me before my match: "Elijah's not a risk taker, but he gets really impatient in the ring and tries to take shortcuts. I always found a high kick to the head scrambles his brain a bit, so I recommend that."
And since nothing says championship like scrambling a little brain, I do just that, repeatedly kicking Burke in his head, then finishing him off with the GTS.
CM Punk is your new ECW champion! The crowd starts chanting Punk's name and Tommy Dreamer even comes down to raise his arms in victory.
This brings an angry Tazz and Morrison to the ring who are looking to start a fight. Burke and Tazz then challenge Punk and Dreamer to a tag team match at Wrestlemania. Stephanie McMahon is out and says that since Tazz made the challenge, Punk gets to pick the match type: Cage, Extreme Rules, or Tables.
I decide to go with Extreme Rules and it's time for Wrestlemania.
"Wrestlemania is extremely intense," Punk tells me. Last year, Punk made a huge name for himself by winning the Money in the Bank ladder match in front of 80,000 people. "I came to the ring and there were still a couple of other guys who needed to do their entrances. I was trying to soak it all in, look at some faces in the crowd, get some focus points, and it was just so super cool."
Speaking of making a name for himself, it was time once again to play "What does CM stand for?" Punk loves messing with people about his name (he's told fans it stands for everything from Cookie Monster to Charles Manson), and he always has a new answer for me whenever I bring up the topic. Last time we talked about it, he told me a story of how it stood for Chick Magnet. "I don't know where you got that from," Punk laughs, even though he's the one who told me. "CM has always stood for one thing: Chicago Made. Chick Magnet? That's preposterous. Girls don't like me. I was born and raised in Chicago. The city made me. Punk is just because I've always been a smart-mouthed, wise-ass punk. I still am. I was the guy, if a bunch of football players were messing with one of my friends, I'd walk over there and spit in their face."
"Are you just messing with me now?" I ask
"Could be," he laughs.
The mystery continues (and he knows I'll ask him again next time I see him).
Funny thing is, Punk thinks he has one of the worst names in wrestling. "I think CM Punk is one of the worst names in the business, but I am what I am," he says. As for the other bad names in wrestling history? "I'm a big fan of unnecessary alliteration. I'm a big comic book nerd, so it always tickled me that everybody's name is like Peter Parker or Lana Lang. So in wrestling, Duke 'The Dumpster' Droese was always a really good bad name."
"Whose fault are the bad names, the talent of the creative team?" I ask.
"I think it boils down to being the wrestler's fault. You don't always have to say yes to everything. You can say: 'No, I'm not a Rooster.' It is intimidating and you don't want to screw up or burn bridges, so a lot of guys, if they hand you something, they just try and take that ball and run with it."
Luckily for me, this isn't the Red Rooster's Road to Wrestlemania or I might be prepping for a another "classic" against the Brooklyn Brawler.
Anyway, it's time for Wrestlemania and Punk is the first to grab a barbed wire bat and beat Tazz senseless. By the time the match reaches its climax, all four participants are a bloody mess. At the end, Punk sets up a steel chair in the ring, jumps off of the chair and back flips onto Tazz to send him back into retirement.
But Wrestlemania isn't over. Out of respect to Tommy Dreamer and his legacy, Punk grants him one last shot at the title. Luckily for Punk, Dreamer is a complete mess after the tag match, so after a couple of kicks and a GTS, Dreamer is out and Punk is the last man standing at Wrestlemania.
Will we see Punk walk out of Mania this year with any gold or will we see his storyline with Randy Orton continue to progress until the big event?
"I love to beat up Randy at Raw, at live events, at overseas tours, Wrestlemania, whatever," Punk says even though it's a bit early to tell where his real storyline will be headed by then. "I'd like to think I'd be done beating up Randy by Wrestlemania, but if not, I'd love a cage match against Randy at Wrestlemania to settle the feud.
"I don't think guys are really defined until they get their second title run and that's what I'm looking to do. The Royal Rumble would be a good place to start."
Looks like CM Punk's real road to Wrestlemania has more than a few paths that it could take, and for a wrestler who is also such a huge fan like Punk, he wouldn't want it any other way.
"You never know what's going to happen in this business, whether it's the story on Raw or in the video game," Punk says. "But at least in the video game I can still get up after a choke slam."
ESPN