WWE star CM Punk reflects on one of his most shocking feuds.
By winning a four-way match on WWE Raw in March 2013, CM Punk earned the right to challenge The Undertaker, and his undefeated streak, at WrestleMania 29. Unfortunately, the road to WrestleMania then took a dark turn when Undertaker’s manager, Paul Bearer, passed away in real life.
With this in mind, Punk initially proceeded with caution as it pertained to the potential mentions of Bearer in his WWE storyline with The Undertaker. As he told Complex News, though, Bearer’s family later granted him permission to incorporate Bearer and his death into it.
“It was heavy because while I knew [Bearer], I didn’t know him or have a connection to him like a lot of people in the company did, like Undertaker did,” Punk said. “I was careful to make sure, and his family members, I think his son signed off on it. Because I was like I don’t want to do this unless everybody’s okay with it.
CM Punk Is Grateful For ‘Gift’ He Received
“At that time, my deal was being a bad guy trying to just get people to pay to see me beat up. So I wasn’t sure if they were going to be agreeable to everything. Because once you give me the green light, like are you sure about this? It’s going to be pretty heavy,” he continued.
“I was told by people that were super close to him that he would have loved it, so I can just go by their word. But yeah, that’s one of those things. It’s a privilege and it’s an honor to be able to be respected enough to be handed this gift almost. It’s a shame that he died obviously, but to me, the magic of what we do is we can pivot and use real life stuff to blur the line. I was grateful that I was allowed to be able to do that.”
En route to WrestleMania 29, Punk famously interrupted The Undertaker’s tribute to Bearer. He said to Bearer, Undertaker would always have a perfect record at “The Show of Shows.” However, everyone else would recognize Punk as the man who put Undertaker’s streak to rest. In a more shocking moment, Punk’s on-screen manager, Paul Heyman, mocked Bearer by dressing up as him on Raw. Punk then attacked The Undertaker and dumped Bearer’s “ashes” on him.
The Undertaker went on to defeat Punk at WrestleMania, courtesy of a Tombstone Piledriver.
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