What’s the story?
On a recent episode of Bruce Prichard’s podcast called “Something To Wrestle With” where Bruce goes into detail about how he pitched CM Punk to Vince McMahon. While on the subject, Prichard explained how it was hard to sell Punk to the WWE creative team because he was so different and added that nobody understood what Punk stood for.
In case you didn’t know...
CM Punk made his wrestling debut in 1999 with stops at Ring Of Honor, Impact Wrestling and various other independent promotions. He would sign with the WWE in 2005 and start in Ohio Valley Wrestling before making his mark on the main roster.
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The heart of the matter
To help get Punk a bigger role in the company, Prichard would take a camera crew and interview him about his ‘straight edge’ lifestyle and his tattoos. It would be a way to help humanise Punk and make him more relatable to not only the WWE Universe but to the creative team as well.
Prichard would go on to say the following on the aftermath of the interview:
“They took the footage, and they took it to the studio and the guys who were about that age group they listened to his interview and listened to his explanations and were like ‘this guy’s deep, this guy’s great!’ Then all of a sudden people were like ‘well, we gotta do something with him and Vince let him in.”
Before the guys in the studio watched this interview, they just perceived Punk as a “goof that no one understood”.
What’s next?
Prichard recently returned to Impact Wrestling and is working an on-camera authority figure role as they are setting up a feud leading up to their big pay per view Slammiversary.
Author’s take
Many people credit Daniel Bryan for opening the door to many indie stars in the past who have a major role in the WWE, but it was CM Punk who broke through a few years later to start the charge.
Thankfully Bruce saw something in Punk to go to all of that trouble to present him in a way that would impress creative. If this didn’t happen, we wouldn’t have had some of the best moments in WWE history such as Punk leaving the company with the WWE Championship.
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