Currently retired wrestler CM Punk recently gave his thoughts on whether he would ever work with or wrestle for NJPW.
Recently CM Punk was a guest on Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette. Renée Paquette, formerly known as Renee Young in WWE, asked a question that CM Punk probably doesn’t get a lot. Everyone has asked him if he would wrestle for WWE again and of course wrestle for AEW, but she asked CM Punk about working with NJPW.
“Oh, there’s this huge part of me that never wanted to, the goal wasn’t to be a WWE superstar. I was content with wrestling in Japan. But Japan was a lot different when I went over there, and I got told by [Shinya] Hashimoto, as he was paying me, ‘You, good worker. Too big for cruiserweight, too small for heavyweight’ and I was like, ‘That sucks. Thanks a lot.’ But yeah, things are different now and I do think there’s guys in New Japan.
I think [Kazuchika] Okada and even saying that, I haven’t seen a lot of his stuff. I apologize profusely Okada-san. One of these days, maybe I’ll get around to it. Maybe I’m gonna get on the treadmill and I’ll watch some of your stuff right now. I just sound like the old guy who doesn’t f*cking know what’s going on,” Punk said.
CM Punk Would Be Big In Japan
Punk didn’t give a solid yes or no answer, but it seemed like he was leaning more towards yes. Even though Punk is 6 foot, 2 inches he would be considered short for a heavyweight back in the day in the US and Japan. However, this has changed in the wrestling world and Punk would probably be considered average height.
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I think Punk would do really well in New Japan. He is an amazing talker and a great heel. The Japanese audience would just love him and would be a breath of fresh air for them.
Punk talked about how he changed wrestling and opened the doors for young wrestlers who are currently big names to thrive and shine.
“Yeah. The more they change, the more they stay the same. For ego purposes, while I do have one, it’s not as big as people like to imagine it is. I don’t take credit for anything that happened. I do think there’s probably a lot of people that wouldn’t currently have jobs if it wasn’t for me, but I’m more along the lines of like, if I ever helped you get a job, I was happy to do that and I always did stuff for the right reasons and if I’m no longer friends with certain people that I helped get there, I’m not like, ‘Ugh, I wish I never helped you.’ I’m just like whatever.
I know what the truth is, they know what the truth is. But like the Kevin Steens [Owens] and like the Sami Zayns, I don’t take credit for any of their success, I don’t take credit for Daniel Bryan getting a main event of WrestleMania. But, the truth is, a lot of that sh*t wouldn’t have happened if wasn’t for me, or at least for the vacuum that I created when I left,” Punk said. (H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.)
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Best In The World? No, But Still Pretty Good
CM Punk was definitely a different kind of heel which had not been seen in a little while aside from Chris Jericho. He was a cool heel who fans hated, but were really glad he was around. His style always kind of reminded me of Roddy Piper. Anytime CM Punk was on the mic he could talk circles around almost anyone. That description sounds pretty close to Kevin Owens to me.
The reason the Pipe Bomb promo is famous is because CM Punk delivered it. Most other wrestlers couldn’t have made it as successful as CM Punk did. The reason he’s still talked about and fans are clamoring for him to return to the ring even after leaving wrestling six years ago is because he was truly talented.
Would you like to see CM Punk in NJPW? Do you think he would do well there? Is CM Punk just too far out of wrestling to ever come back? Don’t GTS before you leave your comments below.
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Sources: ProWrestling, POST Wrestling, Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette
