CM Punk explains which ‘80s wrestlers he grew up idolizing and the one who made him want to become a pro wrestler. Punk has fully returned to WWE as of this past Saturday at SummerSlam. He originally returned in November but was injured in January at Royal Rumble. Saturday was his first singles match in WWE since his return.
CM Punk hadn’t wrestled a singles match in WWE in over 10 years. However, despite not being in WWE for almost a decade when he returned in November, the fans remembered him, and is still a huge money draw.
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CM Punk is one of the most controversial wrestlers today. His personality is as prickly as they come. He is very opinionated and follows his dreams and desires wherever they may take him.
CM Punk is a very hard man to figure out. Therefore trying to figure which wrestlers he grew up idolizing and may have motivated him to become a wrestler is hard. However, during a recent interview with ESPN he was asked for his top five favorite wrestlers. He threw out some names he loved to watch as a kid and singled out one wrestler in particular.
“Harley Race, Terry Funk, I think Steve Austin is the biggest superstar this industry has ever seen. I would say Eddie Guerrero … Ricky Steamboat … Jesus, let’s scratch off Steamboat, sorry Steamer. Roddy Piper, that’s the problem with these top five lists. Why I got into wrestling was Roddy Piper.
I saw Piper, I saw him as an undersized guy who was surrounded by all these hulks. And he just talked trash, and I was like, I would like to do that. That looks like something I could do. This is probably right when WWE, WWF at the time, exploded nationally, like ’87.”Via Wrestling Inc.
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Roddy Piper was one of the top in the ‘80s and best heels of all time, but he was a different kind of heel. Heels in the ‘80s played on the basic reasons to dislike someone. Guys like Ric Flair were arrogant and cheated to win, Ted DiBiase was rich and used his wealth to get ahead and Iron Sheik disrespected America.
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However, Piper was a different kind of heel and may have been the first of his kind. He was a cool heel. A heel that fans loved to hate. Piper was a heel because he was unapologetically himself. He was brash, abrasive and not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the giants of the ‘80s and in some cases those giants were literal.
Piper was also one of the best on the mic. Where some would cater to the crowd to get heat, Piper would just talk and if the crowd or his opponent didn’t like it too bad. Everything he did rubbed people the wrong way and he didn’t care. He did whatever he wanted.
From Piper to CM Punk
It is easy to see why Punk liked him so much. It is also easy to see Piper’s influence on Punk. They both aren’t scared to speak their minds and go against anyone. Punk just had his first singles match in almost a year after being injured against a huge man in Drew McIntyre. He is also known for his top class mic skills which are better than 75 percent of the roster. Without Piper the Punk we see today would be very different and that is if Punk even became a wrestler.
Piper’s influence isn’t isolated to Punk. A lot of the best heels today take aspects of Piper. Kevin Owens, MJF, Chris Jericho and others have taken on his brash style and excellent mic skills.
It’s always interesting to see who top stars looked up to when growing up. Can you see Roddy Piper’s influence on CM Punk? What about Piper’s influence on others? Are you able to see Punk’s influence on the generation coming into wrestling today? Can you see any influence from those other wrestlers in Punk? Let us know on social media if you think Piper was the best heel of the ‘80s.
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Sources: ESPN, Wrestling Inc.
