CM Punk may have returned to wrestling with All Elite Wrestling this year, but the former World Champion has theorised how his return may have gone if he signed with WWE.
CM Punk left WWE in 2014, and many people thought if he ever returned to wrestling, it would have been with Vince McMahon's promotion.
However, the emergence of AEW meant that Punk had options, and the 43-year-old had options, and he opted to sign with Tony Khan's promotion and return with AEW.
In a recent interview with NYC radio host Josh Martinez, CM Punk has spoken about how he thinks a return to WWE would have gone down.
Punk explains that he thinks his return would have followed a similar pattern to Edge and Batista, who both made their returns in Royal Rumble matches.
Both men were inserted right into the title picture upon returning to WWE, and considering CM Punk hasn't yet in AEW, you have to think that he wants to stay away from the top of the card right now:
I literally want to wrestle everybody, but I’m telling a specific story here of coming back, kind of restarting, rekindling my love for pro wrestling. If I went back to WWE, what would I do? There’s a formula. There’s a track record and a formula. This is what they do. Batista comes back, he wins the Royal Rumble, he main events WrestleMania. Edge comes back. He’s in the Royal Rumble. I think he was in it twice.
CM Punk explained that he didn't want to follow the same "formula" of previous WWE debuts, noting that he has returned to tell stories and put on great matches for the fans.
“He might have won, I don’t know. He goes on the main event WrestleMania. There’s a formula and I was bored of that s**t 10 years ago, so I’m bored of it now. I understand people saying that they don’t like certain things and all that, then it’s not for you. I get it. Like I said, I’m there for the fans in the building. I’m telling the stories that I want to tell, and I’m having fun doing it. You’ll know when it’s not fun for me because I won’t do it.”
Thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription.