CM Punk has been back in the world of professional wrestling for a handful of months, and he recently spoke about how he’s going about preventing himself from burning out too fast.
“The Second City Saint” walked away from WWE, and wrestling as a whole, in 2014, and he later named burnout and frustration as two of the primary reasons why he left. The former WWE Champion made his remarkable return last August when he signed with AEW and debuted at AEW Rampage: The First Dance. Since then, he has regained his status as one of the most popular wrestlers in the world today.
In an interview with Abe Kanan, Punk reflected on the first few months of his return. He described how he’s been focused on avoiding burnout this time around by giving it his all at work, but leaving the job at the proverbial office.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s rewarding work,” CM Punk said. “I tried to tell myself that I can’t care as much as I used to right? Because I just burn out. It’s a big reason why I was gone for seven years. But it’s hard to do what we do at this level without caring. So instead, I’ve adopted the philosophy of just kind of leaving everything at work, you know what I mean? And then when I’m not there, you know, I’m not there.”
Punk went on to explain how nowadays, he has a lot of things to juggle, but he focuses on wrestling when he’s “at work” for AEW. He shared his excitement about his responsibilities with AEW; while it’s challenging to balance everything he’s doing, Punk also emphasized that it’s rewarding to do so.
“…I’m spread very thin, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Punk. “It’s just when I’m at AEW, I’m just there, 100%. I’m so on that I need the days off that I have in between every Wednesday or Friday or whatever like that, to recuperate. The problem is, I’m such an asshole, I have like four other jobs, and I don’t have time to decompress. So is it everything that I thought it would be? It’s that times ten.
“But my barometer of whether it’s all worth it, so to say, is I look forward to getting on a plane. I hate leaving my dog, I hate leaving my wife, maybe in that order, maybe not in that order. But I get excited for road trips, because it’s one day and I get to do what I am falling back in love with, and I have fun with it. So yeah, it’s everything I thought it could be, and more, times ten. And it’s challenging, but everything that’s worth doing is hard, so it’s rewarding.”
Punk will face MJF in a high-profile clash Wednesday night on AEW Dynamite.
