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While appearing on Stephanie McMahon's podcast, CM Punk looked back on the infamous pipebomb. Here is a transcript:
Stephanie McMahon: We are currently celebrating the 15-year anniversary since the Summer of Punk. Looking back on that summer of 2011, what memories do you have of it?
CM Punk: Fond memories. I remember feeling like I leveled up. That's the big takeaway: "Holy shit. All right. Now I'm here." But also, be careful what you ask for because now the hard work really begins. I feel like I busted my ass in my career to get to that moment where I was finally recognized, but the rent's due every day. And I was slowing down, I wanted to take a bit of a break. I was on the road for a very long time, doing every house show, every pay-per-view. Looking back on it, 2006 to 2011 might not sound like a lot of time, but the international tours we would do, and because I wasn't creatively or monetarily satisfied with where I was, I was like, "Let me take a break." And then lightning struck with the pipe bomb. That whole situation to me was just magic. We captured that, and it was like, "Okay, I can either go home and squander this, or I can ride this lightning bolt." And I rode the lightning bolt. It really made me feel like I had finally leveled up in management's minds to the level that my ability was always at. I felt like I worked like a top guy, and I was finally recognized as that for the first time. With that came all kinds of other challenges and problems, but that's the main takeaway. That's definitely how I felt.
Stephanie McMahon: Awesome. And going off of that, what do you remember about going out and delivering the infamous pipe bomb promo that turned the wrestling world upside down?
CM Punk: I remember—now mind you, the context is I'm still very much leaving, right? In my mind, I have no new contract. I'm looking forward to flying to Australia and New Zealand the next day, and it was gonna be my last tour. Again, Australia. And I was told this unbelievable thing: "I want you to go out there and air your grievances." No, you don't. You don't want me doing this. Instinct-wise, I knew if I told your dad, "This is what I wanna say," he would say no. "You can't say that."
I trusted myself because I think the thought was, "He's gonna swear, he's gonna get us fined by the FCC, get us thrown off the air, or whip his dick out." My intent was never to do anything like that. In the confines of the television show that we do, I have too much respect for the business to go so far that I'm just burning a bridge for no reason. It needed to be meaningful. Nothing I did or said was outside of what we did on our television show, right? But knowing my instincts, saying things like "New Japan Pro Wrestling" was wildly provocative for some reason at the time. The competition. Because everybody knew the rules, and a lot of it was just based on stuff that I knew would irritate Vince. If I said, "Hey, I wanna go out there and talk about Paul and Brock," he'd be like, "No, don't mention them." Okay, so I didn't. So I wrote up this bullshit, and I gave it to him. "That's what I'm gonna say." And he read it, and his only feedback was, "All right, it's good. Good. Just make fun of Stephanie." And I was like, "Excuse me?" He's like, "Yeah, add her in there."
Stephanie McMahon: Thanks for taking it easy on me.
CM Punk: I was just an idiot. And the funny thing is, people will still—the Twitter smart fans will still argue about it. "Oh, it was approved, it was this." It was both. It was approved, and it wasn't. It was approved to a degree, and my instincts told me I'm not saying anything too bad. He can't... If he's gonna be mad at me, he's gonna be f**ing mad at me. And you're leaving anyway, that's fine. But—And this is what he told me to do. But it's not a—"Oh, I'm mad at you, and you're just straight-up fired," although I did think maybe there was a possibility of that. And then I've had a couple of flow state, out-of-body experiences in the business where... because sometimes I put so much pressure on myself that I worry about the situation too much, and I overthink it, and I almost over-prepare. I think there needs to be a bit of relaxed chaos. That's why I don't like to plan matches. I like to go out there and just be like, "Maybe we'll do this, but I'm gonna be listening." Because it's a feel. It's a very difficult thing to get people to understand.
I remember the first time I started training, my trainers would say, "Watch Shawn and Razor. I bet they don't even talk to each other." And I was like, "What? The f**k you mean?" "Oh, he probably just shoots him off, and when he's coming off the ropes, he sees that he's like this, so he knows he's taking a hip toss." The f**k? Didn't make any sense to me. I was like, "That's impossible. They can't possibly do that." And now I hide from people. I'm like, "Stay away from me. Don't talk to me." No, but the instincts took over, and I knew that this is the way it has to be. And so I went out and I did it that way. And when I came back, it was, "I smell money," is what he said. And at the time, that was the stamp of approval. That was everything right there. Taught me a lot about business. Sometimes it's art, sometimes it's business. Actually, it's always business. Sometimes it's art. If you can get to the point where it's also art, but holy shit, you're also selling tickets, then that's the magic. When it all comes together.
Stephanie McMahon: 100%. It's funny because I read the pipe bomb transcription before doing this today, and I was like, "It's really not that bad." It's funny, right? Perspective and time, because in the moment, the context is very important.
CM Punk: And that goes to illustrate how old I am now. That at the f**king time, yeah, maybe it doesn't hold up, I really don't know because of what it meant in the moment. But that thing melted people's TVs.
Stephanie McMahon: It did, yeah. No one had ever done that. DX was controversial, reading the USA Network standards and practices, that was very fun. But nobody had at that time ever talked about Vince and Paul and me—even though you were directed to—but in a shoot way. It treaded the line without crossing.
CM Punk: And then it's hard for me to toot my own horn, but when I see somebody say something off the cuff and wildly negative about it, like, "Oh, it's not that great," nope. You don't get it. You don't see what I did. I have seen more people post that promo, try to emulate that, and completely miss the point. They completely just think that they need to say people's real names or say these outlandish things, and that's what it was. No, that's not what it was. I'll give people the formula. I will tell everybody in NXT, "This is the formula: go out there and you tell them four things that they know are true, and then the fifth one can be, 'I was born on Mars.' And they'll be like, 'Shit, maybe this guy was born on Mars,' because those other four things he said were true." It was nothing new then, it is nothing new now. I would like to think it was all instincts, content, and performance, but propped up by the oldest rules in pro wrestling.
I talk about Terry Funk a lot. A guy I don't talk about enough is Johnny Valentine. Johnny Valentine, even back in the '60s, would say, "They all know this is bullshit. They all know this is fake. But when I go out there, they're gonna point at me and go, 'But that motherf**ker is real.'" And that was the CM Punk that walked out on that stage at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on that July day. I sat down Indian style because I was just like, "This is it. This is me." And—
Stephanie McMahon: Which made people, automatically when you sat down like that, start paying attention in a different way. They were listening differently. This wasn't a wrestling promo. Right? That was by design, purposely. It was awesome.
CM Punk: Thank you.
Stephanie McMahon: It obviously transformed so many aspects of the business and your career. 15 years of Punk.
CM Punk: When I was out of the business, I was obviously persona non grata, right? I think everywhere. Y'all did a top 100 moments of Raw or something like that—maybe it was the Raw anniversary. And you guys put the pipe bomb as number one. I remember being like, I am actually flabbergasted at that. To be so good, to make that moment what it was, to have him sign off on that, and to make that the number one Raw moment—to me, it speaks volumes. That's insane. Forever. Somebody'll top it, I hope somebody does. I hope there's somebody in NXT, you know?
Stephanie McMahon: But nobody can ever take away from that moment. That's just noise. Trust your instincts.
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