CM Punk Is Back
Esquire Singapore|April 2022
Nearly a decade ago, CM Punk walked away from pro wrestling and swore he’d never return. Now he’s back, headlining a new league that’s challenging the mighty WWE for dominance. How did he get here? An unlikely story about multiple concussions, endless lawsuits, ratings wars, a car-bumper czar, the simple power of T-shirts, and the unexpected grace of second chances.
Dan Sinker
CM Punk Is Back
27 JANUARY 2014

It’s just hours before Monday Night Raw, the biggest show in the history of professional wrestling, is scheduled to begin, and CM Punk’s voice is echoing through the cavernous backstage of Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena. He is screaming for someone to help him. Tonight. Right now. His head feels like it’s going to explode from a stiff blow he suffered during the Royal Rumble last night. He’s had enough concussions to know he’s got one. There is a disgusting welt on his ass that hurts like hell and keeps getting bigger. His ribs ache and his knee is shot. An infection rages in his body; he’s been coughing up yellow bile for weeks. A steady stream of oral antibiotics has been causing such intestinal distress that he crapped himself on live TV a month ago.

CM Punk calls himself “the best in the world”, and to the millions of fans of professional wrestling who watch him every week, he is exactly that. But today—right now—he feels like the world has broken him.

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