It is no secret that former WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk left WWE in 2014. He was gone from the world of professional wrestling for nearly seven years until he returned in 2021. There have been many speculations on why the Second City Saint decided to leave the Stamford-based promotion. While it was obvious that Punk was unhappy with his run WWE, people never knew what really happened. The self-proclaimed Best in the World recently revealed that real reason why he decided to quit.
During an interview on the Pardon My Take podcast, CM Punk revealed that the major reason he decided to leave WWE was his WrestleMania 29 match against the legendary Undertaker. Punk mentioned that he felt very deflated after the match. He believed that he shouldn’t be feeling that way, especially, after wrestling one of the greatest professionals wrestlers of all time. That match acted as a catalyst for Punk to finally make the decision to quit wrestling.
“That was one of the reasons I disappeared for seven years from the business and 10 from WWE. I wrestled The Undertaker at WrestleMania and I was just [deflated]. It worried me. This is everything I ever wanted. At that point, I had been on the road for, like, nine years straight, no breaks, and it’s just a grind, and I loved the match we had, I loved working with him, and there’s a part of me that’s just like, ‘Man, I should have been in a better headspace than that to really be able to enjoy it and realize the gift that it was,'” CM Punk said. [H/T Wrestling Inc.]
A decade later, Punk is back in WWE and is one of the faces of the company.
What are your thoughts on Punk’s departure in 2014?
