CM Punk Tells Rasslin Who He Thinks is the Best Wrestler in the World

all right so we are on the precipice of one of the biggest wrestling shows of the year not one of the biggest maybe the biggest precipice that's a good word thank you very much i appreciate that i've actually studied this morning for this big moment and i'm i'm nailing it so far aw dynamite aw rampage both emanating from arthur ashe stadium this week taking over new york city taking over arthur ashe stadium and doing it with a card that is loaded doing it with matches that are loaded and doing it just at a pace that two years ago when this company started it's just phenomenal i've got cm punk right here cm punk who debuted a couple of weeks ago one of the greatest debuts we've ever seen but i got to ask you you've been around wrestling for a long time i know you had the absence but you've been around wrestling for a very long time was the last time you felt the energy that you feel in the business like it is right now oh god i don't know if i've ever felt the energy like this because let's face it you know when when did wcw fall apart and get bought out march 2001 right so you know the wwe has been the only game in town for 20 years um i was wrestling in 2001 but i was wrestling in you know national guard armories uh vfw halls barns backyards all kinds of stuff i've i can honestly say i've never felt the business as a whole any kind of energy like this so tonight it will be oh this is coming out tomorrow so tonight we will uh we will have a huge show at arthur ashe stadium of course it'll be kenny omega against brian danielson you'll be wrestling on uh rampage this week you'll be wrestling powerhouse hobbs and one of the things you said when you came to this company was you wanted to get in there with young guys and you wanted to both maybe teach them whatever you knew or learn from them as well just work with them and and get it going but you wrestled darby allen to start your aew career now you're wrestling powerhouse hops two completely different guys yeah how do you just change your how do you change your mindset and your style going from from guy to guy like that still trying to work with him and get what you can out of well to me it's art right and i'm an artist and sometimes i like painting with oils sometimes i like painting with acrylic sometimes i like you know making ceramic bowls sometimes i draw sometimes it's with colored pencils sometimes it's black and white you know i it comes in all forms and that's the fun thing about professional wrestling is there's different styles there's different eras there's different opponents there's different rings there's different buildings there's different audiences there's different everything everything from every single time you go different cities certain people will be more popular or less popular based on geography so to me it's art you know there's a there's there's stuff i would like to do with darby there's stuff i'd like to do with powerhouse hobbs there's there's a different story to tell when i get in the ring with you know brian danielson there's a different story when i get in the ring with adam cole i i approach it with the mind of an artist and these are the you know the the tools and the the medium i have to paint a picture so to speak so a couple of weeks ago well back i think it was august 17th chicago you make your debut and i know you probably talked about it a lot but in my opinion this is a podcast by a fan for fans i'm not like inside the business it's just a fan talking about stuff yeah and in my opinion i think there's two maybe three men in history who know what a pop like that feels like to to be at the center of a pop like that i think stone cold steve austin and cm punk when that happens when a noise like that happens what does it feel like for the performer because there's very few performers that know yeah i mean it's like the kids say there's levels to this you know what i mean and you and you don't know until you ascend to those levels and one of the things i've always hated about the wrestling business is it seems that people there's exceptions to the rule some people are good about it but there's always been people who have gotten to a certain level right and they're almost taught and the culture is fostered for them to believe that they need to make sure nobody else gets to that level they don't want anybody to quote unquote steal their spot um me you throwing me but throwing my name in the hat with somebody like steve austin who arguably biggest star business has ever seen right easily a lot of this is subjective though right like you can make the argument like oh no well hulk hogan's a bigger star than steve austin but then you start then you then you look at business periods and eras and box office receipts and like all that other stuff um i think hogan's a piece of [ __ ] so obviously i'm gonna be like steve austin yay but that's it that's another podcast um i told you to get the other drawing what didn't i say get the one with stone cold's vest i mean what it what it feels like uh i don't i don't have the words to describe what it feels like um what i know i feel like is that i want to help everybody on the ae w roster [ __ ] get there yeah that's what i know and i i love to hear that because as a fan the thing that turned me on to aaw were the possibilities and there have been wrestling rosters throughout this world throughout every company where you look at it you got stars you got this you got the next stars i'm not sure i've seen a company with as many potential future stars as this one right now in this moment and i'll just name a couple sammy guevara darby allen uh the lucha brothers just on down the list mjf of course there's just a litany of i know what this company feels like right now with bringing in some of the biggest stars in the world like cm punk like brian danielson but to me the seeds that can be planted with the guys that are going to be the next stars yeah ftr dante martin britt baker yeah yeah it goes on and on and on as a wrestling fan i 100 agree with you so if you if you know i i'll go ahead and tell everybody i had the option yeah right and i and i went well it's the devil you know against maybe the devil you don't know right i know what i'm getting if i go if i go work for vince i know who he is i know what he is it's not gonna change um i didn't have fun necessarily last time i was there i have no reason to believe it was ever going to change um but i i just looked at what i would be doing and it i've done it all yeah who who would i wrestle on that side of the fence it's a fair question i mean you you've got certainly guys that uh and listen the the guys that were there when you were there have now like bobby lashley was there when you were there he's now at the top of the game roman reigns at the top of the game over there it's a fair question but on the left hand that you're i'm sure you're on the aew side of things yeah so many possibilities a kid at christmas yeah like i i've already mentioned a couple of those names like a kid like dante martin i watch him and like the stuff he can do i feel like i'm watching a 1995 nitro where it's just like it just it has a different feel to it it feels gritty it feels rough around the edges and oh here by the way here's here's these two luchadors that you know had a layover in tijuana and you know they're they're exhausted and they go out there and they got they got a six-minute match but they put on such a show and they pack so much into six minutes and have it make sense and all this stuff like the stuff i see this kid dante martin do i go oh yeah like i said again it's like the next evolution of the wrestling business i'm an artist and i'm looking and i go oh i've never painted with that brush before i can't wait to get a hold of that brush so you debuted uh in the ring at uh all out in chicago were you nervous oh yeah i was i was i was deathly afraid i would say it surpassed nerves is that is that just is that a fear from the newness or or more of the seven years away i i think it's a combination of both you know there very much is a um can i still do this golly g will they remember me you know can i keep up with the young whippersnappers but at the core of it it's storytelling and that is what i always excelled at anyway you know you're not gonna see me do any springboard you know moonsaults and [ __ ] like that you know that you're gonna get you know what you get when you tune in for cm punk when you got in the ring with that that mic in your hand the first time of the debut or maybe even any time since do you go in there with a mental plan does that change when you get out there and you feel that crowd do you feel what's going on in the aw in the business i didn't have a mental plan on the 20th of august at the united center because i i knew i couldn't i knew i knew it was going to be a moment right right you know i i don't think i had a grasp of how big of a moment it was going to be but i knew it was going to be special and in order to keep it special i needed to just react and that's what again back to the art of it that's what wrestling is it's like you want yes you can pull strings and you can get the crowd to react right how you want them a lot of the time but the true mastery of it is you know reacting to them and getting a feel for like you know the tone of the room and how these people are and what they want to see and then taking them on that roller coaster it's also a matter of trust from the fans with aaw right kind of switching gears like i think fans trust aaw to give logical storylines and conclusions that are satisfying to fans and and and they they're able to say you know what i don't know where this is going but i trust these guys are going to get get me where i want to go yeah and i feel like aw in the two years that they have been doing this have proven time and again they're able to get there and i don't know how much you watched in the two years that i mean you've been off seven years did you watch aaw from the beginning yeah off and on i i definitely didn't you know there's there's shows i missed and everything like that but you know obviously i watched enough to get to a point where i was like yes i want to work there what did you uh did you like fall in love with the company and just decide um you know this is this is a group of people that that does things the way it should be done in wrestling i well i i think there's there's two schools of thought right you can watch something and you can harp on all the bad things or the wrong things or oh i wouldn't do it that way they should you know uh but i i immediately peeled away from that and i started to focus on the positive stuff and a lot of that is just the talent and you think well maybe they don't have not one singular person but they don't have enough people back there that guys will listen to right and again i i say this to young guys backstage all the time there's not one perfect one way to do something there are ways and things and situations that are tested and i they're you know it comes with experience um but a lot of the times like even you got to let some of these kids just fail and let them figure it out themselves that's that's 100 the truth i mean failure is life's great teacher yes 100 um and i would rather have them experience that instead of just listening to me you know and and and not realizing that you know i i want them to all have their own aha moments you know we have seen wrestlers throughout this medium we've seen wrestlers in history beloved in their hometown right we've seen i don't think we've ever seen what you've created in chicago the the connection and the why is it that that you you in chicago is just a different animal than every other restaurant every other hometown because the story doesn't change i'm still that same kid yeah i don't you know i don't change details of of of past stories there's no [ __ ] um i'm real yeah i would say i still don't think a lot of wrestling fans understand how insane the dallas tour territory was with the von eriks wccw like how beloved the von eriks were this may be the closest i'm not saying i'm von erich level face i didn't think of that comparison but on the 20th of august you know when i came out at the united center i was like holy [ __ ] i it's different i grew up in rural mississippi you're not the exact same age we're both 42 years old uh i grew up in mississippi i got the memphis territory on channel 5 at 11 on saturdays i saw jerry lawler wrestle in memphis yeah i think that's similar i don't know yes and i watched i watched i lived through wccw i came into like the the the back half of the von eriks i didn't see like the free birds feud i was a little bit too young for that but i can go back and watch it now and i think that's a very apt comparison when they would come out and people just freaking out and trying to get to them and doing all this they were beloved but on the i'm not i'm not trying to insult what they did that i think you'll take this the right way that was on a regional scale right and these were people that everybody on a national scale in in in your time you know money bank 2011 and now this show chicago just rushes to you and just and just creates these moments with you that are unforgettable and i don't know if we've ever seen it on a national excuse me on a national scale like this that's why they got ice cream man yeah that's what i got that's why they i treated it i treat you if i come tomorrow night uh no no because uh it's probably for the best yeah it probably is for the best honestly you're saying i'm a little lumpy is that what you're saying no i'm just i'm just saying it it takes a lot to facilitate that many ice cream bars there's a lot there's a lot that goes in i don't know if you know but ice cream bars can melt there's a lot that goes into that [ __ ] you have to have some sort of uh you know cooler con contraption all right so tomorrow night huge card uh kenny omega brian danielson uh i assume in the main event but you've got i don't want to talk about them if you go down through the car like brit baker yep ruby soho this is somebody debuting um ruby soho that debuted uh all out as well and now she's wrestling bert baker i don't know that i i was a late i'm just going to say it i've said it on the show before i was a late convert to women's wrestling i really was like 2009 2010 i wasn't into it but then when the sasha banks of the world they came along and they got it better and brit baker to me has been one of the aw's transcendent stars since this started and this whole card is great but i just i i every time i watch an aw show and i see her come out i'm like well she's like the cm punk of the women's division wow as far as her crowd reacts maybe i'm the brit baker of the male division yeah and then you said that was one of the first words you said in awry first first words out of my mouth after seven years yeah she's um yeah she's fantastic and ruby soho is also fine because like i look at all these young talented people and i just go man they're they're good now yeah imagine them in two years the potential is absolutely through the roof that's what excites me so much about this whole situation aw has signed cm punk who has been is one of the best wrestlers in the world and a huge star brian danielson one of the best wrestlers in the world huge star who's the next one yeah and i think they're in aw i think it's adam cole i think it could be sammy gavar i think it could be darby allen and that's really the beauty of wrestling is that's what brings fans in identifying that new guy and riding the ride with him and we're not in an environment where we're gonna we're not in the businesses i i say this all the time this is i i love this saying we're not in the business of standing on our own dicks well i actually do that okay but we're not i'm you know nobody's nobody's trying to clip anybody's wings and it's gonna give birth to that next huge star just like you said so do you i i just take me behind the scene a little bit do you like just talk with tony kahn who you'd want to work with oh this guy's got talent let me let me go over there or is that have you not even got that far along that's about that's about 90 of it yeah it's really it's really what it is you know because i i think everybody has potential and everybody's so good that i could work with anybody back there i mean so far today nobody's talked to me about like this owen heart deal that that that they break bridged with martha like bro sitting there yeah we're getting there we're here i'll i'll wait i'll no no i backtrack like i'm still overwhelmed at that news as a wrestling fan it blows me away and i just think it's another eye-opening aspect of aew that it's just like we you know for 20 years there was one place and if you if if you didn't want to deal with them then you're kind of out of sight out of mind you know point in case you know right owen heart foundation martha hart cm punk and what what aew has done is is got me back after seven years and then they did what i categorized as the the the unthinkable and we're gonna get owen toys owen shirts owen in a video game and that's amazing for his legacy so maybe you'll agree with the way i characterize it when i heard it aw has had so many they get it moments so many moments where this company you look at something they do whether it's bringing back tully to put with a great tag team whether it's bringing back arn to put him with uh you know dusty rhodes on whether it's bringing back um jake roberts to put him with a wild card there's so many they get at moments and yesterday when i saw that because i mean going into yesterday owen hart's not really front of mind you're not thinking but when aw announced i was like of course of course that like yes honor this man get this man back in the consciousness get get his his likeness out there yes yes yes and they get it yep and again i i've never worked for wwe or aw so i i love them both but it's just an element that they put in their corner if they're if i'm going to have an alternative in this country if i'm going to have a second big promotion if i'm going to have another big if they become the biggest promotion it's because they get it and wrestling fans who get it want to feel that connection i don't know if that if that made sense at all yeah it makes sense but you know and and the numbers don't lie you know i i i don't give a [ __ ] about ratings right to me if it's good it's good and i will always bring up this correlation this analogy um one of my favorite movies of all time is john carpenter's a thing right you ever seen it i did not it's an excellent movie it is considered a classic now it is considered like high brow cinema the weight the way it shot the mood the acting the practical effects everything when that movie came out it bombed critics panned it everybody laughed at it it ruined john carpenter's career he's still bitter about it to this day and understandably so because he said if you love that movie now where the [ __ ] were you why didn't you go see it right you should have supported it then and now i feel like the aew fan base are those fans that are supporting that movie now they're giving us our flowers now right and in turn we give them moments like you described where we get it and it's really just giving the fans what they want to see well that and and competition ultimately is is is you know a rising tide lifts all ships right yeah and and the best thing that ever happened in the 90s was this company right here getting out of the bingo halls getting out of atlanta and and becoming a national company and forcing the other guys to to to be great now i don't know if that's what's going to happen here all i know is wrestling fans variety is is the spice of life variety and for 20 years it's been one vending machine and all the buttons are the same drink yeah now different one different drinks and i'm just i'm just pleased i'm happy it's fantastic to be able to to watch good wrestling on monday good wrestling on wednesday good wrestling on friday it's it's one of the best times to ever be a wrestling fan and i could see where let's i don't know you at all we've we've never met but i could see where if i if somebody's been out for seven years and they love this [ __ ] i can see where you would want to be a part of that fit like a glove yeah yeah so um a couple more questions i don't know what kind of time constraints we're on here we're just we're cool we're good um now that the return is in the rearview mirror for you like i'm sure you planned that i'm sure i'm sure you spent the summer like thinking what's it going to feel like now it's in the rear view how how long term are you planning now is it week to week is it day to day is it month to month uh i think it's a pay-per-view to pay-per-view and we can kind of fill in the blanks you know like it's another super positive thing to me about aew is there's there's pay-per-views four times a year right and we'll have big shows like you know tomorrow or today sorry this is coming out today it feels like a pay-per-view yeah right it really does this is just our television show so imagine the pay-per-views right it's actually two tv shows right dynamite and then rampage as well uh so with four pay-per-views a year you can kind of use that as a bridge and you can book stuff and plan stuff in between that to get you to those pay-per-views and i think it's the smartest way to do it we don't have a pay-per-view every three weeks we're not trying to beat you over the head with it uh and and creatively that just fosters a much better environment system it also kind of lets you try things in the interim too right that you might not try and then by the time the pay-per-view comes around you've got everything right where it needs to be absolutely i want to ask you about that pay-per-view because you you wrestled darby allen and you went on i think you were third from last i believe i'm not i think so i don't know if i remember it correctly but were you were you watching the show before your match or were you just getting ready uh here and there you know it's hard to focus yeah i mean especially for me in that position um you know maybe me eight seven eight years ago i would watch the whole show uh but i i i was too nervous to really focus on anything but i watched stuff here and there i caught bits of the cage match um i caught bits of the uh there there's there's bits and pieces of everything that i i was watching so i came away from that show thinking this is one of the best shows i've ever seen and i remember the first couple of matches being good and you know i'm excited to see cm punk and darby allen but that caged the tag team match in the cage they were out there like 45 minutes and from the entrance to when they went off and penta got his kids to come down and hug him and he was bloody i thought that was just i was like this show has a chance to be an all-timer because that was incredible and from then on the darby allen cm punk match and then the the dueling debuts at the end like that's what a wrestling show is supposed to feel like yeah 100 it was fantastic and coming off of that how much momentum did you guys feel because you come off that now you got to build to this tonight yeah but it i'm not going to say i'm not going to say it's easy because there is a tremendous amount of hard work that goes into it again just not in the habit of standing on our own dicks sure it's not in a lot of situations people will try to tell you oh it's it's chess not checkers well in this situation it's checkers it's not chess we're not trying to over complicate things stuff makes sense and we go yeah okay this this round hole that the peg goes into the round hole we're not trying to jam the square into the round hole because this is what we want the audience to feel or do or like we just kind of we're bruce lee we're water we just we're fluid we go with the flow when stuff happens the suzuki incident we go let's have fun with it right let's do it let's put it on tv let's talk about it so the dynamite main event of suzuki against uh moxley yeah you you went out in the crowd for that i was you wanted to go out and see that yep uh if you had a lot of those moments or do you have any other matches like maybe tonight you're gonna try to sneak out there and watch i mean because as a wrestling fan you've got to be excited with everything that's going on yeah i mean it's kind of a double-edged sword right because i want to i want to feel the crowd right and i want to experience things just from my own well-being you know from my own perspective i also don't want to go out in the crowd because i'm not trying to get noticed i'm not trying to you know sign autographs and take pictures in that moment um i would love to watch the entirety of brian danielson versus kenny omega yeah you know i i don't want to i don't want to watch that on a television screen if i could be front row for that without just detracting from what the guys in the ring are doing so that's the double-edged sword right like i don't want to disrespect those guys and i don't want to cause a scene draw a crowd like whatever i just want to watch the match um you debuted august 20th brian danielson debuts uh september 5th with a couple of weeks at each other is there a because you both have been gigantic stars so you both have been in the conversation for the best in the world um is there a competition is there competitiveness between you guys because you came in so close or is it almost camaraderie or is there is there's just nothing to it i don't think there's competition yeah i i think there's just a great um will and a desire to not only wrestle each other eventually but just just just let's [ __ ] have fun with all these new toys we got all these all these new [ __ ] kids you know and i don't i keep talking about wanting to tag with them uh there's just so many options we talk about at the top of the show there's just so many options yeah i i said uh i said this to brian earlier i think we've spent a year or we spent the summer getting answers from aw when will cm punk debut when will brian danielson debut now we're left with a bunch of questions and the questions are just as good as the answers the questions are who's the next young star to break through the questions are what happens with kenny omega when he gets to wrestle these matches against the cm punks of the world against the brian danielson's law there are so many questions or so many ways this tree can grow that it's just it's just phenomenally exciting and and like when i tell you a story uh i interviewed tony khan like back in april and he said i'm gonna do a building in new york that nobody's ever done before and i'm like okay what are you gonna do because madison square garden's right there and i never in my mind thought okay he's gonna do arthur ashe stadium which is beautiful out there it's fantastic and it's perfect for wrestling you know tennis courts a small area and it's easy to put a wrestling ring in there and he said and i got some surprises and everything and everything he's done has been for the betterment of wrestling and has been like interesting and i just can't wait to see what happens next with this company um i guess that wasn't even a question i just i just ran it for a second i apologize about that i love it no but i i i share your sentiment 100 you uh you've been there for a month did you have any preconceived notions of the place that might have been wrong um i really don't think so because you know i'm i'm in my 40s now so you know i i've changed my perspective on a lot of things now and instead of have even having preconceived notions i was just like no just throw it all out go in there blank slate empty you know empty your head and just go in there and just experience things as they are speaking of being in your 40s listen i know what it's like um i haven't taken care of myself like you have but the night after darby allen were you were you were you sore oh sore for sure yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah absolutely i mean that was uh i was i was watching that i was like he's really going for it in his first time out i had to you didn't what would you go 18 minutes or something like that i don't i don't [ __ ] know you just went you just went all right well tonight it is um aw dynamite uh arthur ash grand slam and then friday night two more hours it is aw rampage grand slam you'll be wrestling on rampage but you will be making an appearance on dynamite you will be having an in person yeah i'm going to talk a little trash which is it's what i it's what i do um i just can't wait and my last question i'll end what is what is the immediate and what does the immediate future hold for cm punk in this company oh god i i mean the immediate future is just making sure that everything i do is as good as it can be okay you know what i mean and then going forward just continuing to build off that i'm still looking at this like i'm the new guy and i'm building a foundation okay you know is that i shouldn't have asked another question you should is that realistic though like i know you're the new guy but you're not the new guy right so is it hard to build something new when you have so much behind you no i think it helps because that that's that's my past and that's my experience and i can always draw from that okay and i i've been in situations that i can that i i think can help me but i i'm learning every day and you know it's in jiu jitsu we call it the white belt mentality all right so i don't care if you're a black belt you you walk on the mat like you're a white belt yeah and you you'll just be more receptive to anything and that's that's who i am right now you know well let me ask you one last question and i know i've already said one last question but it came to my mind right here i just have to have your opinion who's the best wrestler in the world you know for the first time and i think a long time i think the water's as muddy as it has been i agree you know i i remember i remember in 2000 god maybe 2002 2003 i was like eddie guerrero is the best wrestler in the world easily a fair thought i remember in 2004 samoa joe was the best wrestler in the world right it's kind of the whole animus for the best in the world thing you know there's a couple years there where it was brian danielson and i think if you have your finger on the pulse of wrestling there there always feels like there was a guy that was oh this this guy's you know this guy's the best and that's kind of how the evolution of chip on a shoulder cm punk happened is because i was in a company that would never position me as as any as anything really right i had to fight for everything and it was to me it was obvious he was like come on guys like this is this is pretty obvious like not only not only am i this good but this shit's easy well i mean it was the crux of your of your big promo i hate this idea that you're the best i'm the best and that attitude you know helped develop that character and now i think it and and it's so subjective too you know like you could say it's daniel bryan brian danielson i knew i was gonna do that you say it's brian danielson you could say it's kenny omega um there's an argument for roman reigns um i think now in 2021 like i said i think this has been the murkiest it's been in a in a very long time you know i mean there's guys in new japan too you know it's and you know what though i'm going to add one last thing it seems like we're on the precipice of maybe finding out well here here i'll i'll i'll add this too where else can you see aew talent wrestle new japan talent yeah or new japan talent wrestle guys on the indies or you know you know like there's that whole forbidden door aspect at aew that should be very appealing if anybody out there wants to find out who in fact is the best wrestler in the world you can't do that in the other place we can literally find that out very very soon yeah and uh i think it might start tonight and you know and if if new york city is the center of the wrestling world and you're so up your ass about ratings and and buy rates and you know ticket sales and all that other stuff well aew is the best wrestler in the world because we just packed 20 000 people in the arthur ash stadium that's cm punk and this is wrestling

Channel: Barstool Rasslin'

Views: 245,791

Keywords: CM punk, aew, britt baker, dynamite grandslam, professional wrestling, tony khan, wrestling, barstool, barstool sports

Id: DQ6eNVXz06A

Length: 32min 23sec (1943 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021