“You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain (so vain)
I bet you think this song is about you
Don't you don't you, don't you, don't you”
-Carly Simon “You’re So Vain”
By the lyrics I chose this week, you all have a pretty good idea who I’m covering in this article, don’t you?
Before I name him, and don’t worry it won’t be forty years later like the woman who sang this, a little anecdote.
The reason for this column isn’t just because I haven’t published anything in a while (not to say I haven’t tried to write as my long drafts folder will attest to), but also because in addition to the usual holiday trauma I deal with every year, I’m also dealing with the prodigal brother returning after a long absence (of which I will probably talk about at some point), getting over a long term partner that I was sure was going to be the one, and facing the fallout from neglecting my own life for others. But now in addition to all that, I’ve been battling one of the worst sicknesses I’ve had in a long time.
Due to that, I have no voice, at least not an amplified one. I can whisper, but I can’t amplify my voice beyond that. I should record that because I know there’s a statement somewhere in that. Especially when it’s the perfect metaphor for marginalized groups about how they speak but their voices are never heard and how amplification of those voices can make all the difference (note to self, do that later).
So, with so much to say, and no voice to say it, I turn to this because at least for the moment, my hands still work.
A PRELUDE
First of all, can we just take a look at this picture? I needed a picture of his return at Survivor Series for this article and this is just too perfect. A man coming back to the place that he’s disparaged for so long with his tail between his legs trying to act all tough like he’s still the man.
But, that’s part of what I want to talk about. The fakeness of the whole situation. I know what a lot of you are gonna tell me.
“Rachel, wrestling is fake”….
Let me explain something that I’ve learned in my years dealing with the industry, the people I’ve been both fortunate and unfortunate to meet and do business with as well as just shoot the shit with, the stories I’ve been passed down, the things I’ve experienced, that when it comes to pro wrestling, the behind the scenes are the least fake thing about it. Trust me when I tell you that what the wrestlers and management have seen and done would put all of Hollywood to shame and I do mean ALL of Hollywood. From the twenties to the forties, to McCarthyism to the Me Too movement, from Fatty Arbuckle to Robert Blake. For everything you’ve heard about Hollywood, something in pro wrestling has already eclipsed it.
That’s the biggest reason I still follow wrestling years after the TV product has become a major train wreck. The drama behind the scenes is more compelling than anything you’ll see on television. Hell, Vice has made their entire CHANNEL off of such stories. Dark Side of the Ring, Tales From The Territories, The Nine Lives of Vince McMahon….all of it made their channel to the point that they’ve copied the formula for pro football, decades like the 90’s and the 2000’s, even comedians. It’s even made its way to the big screen with the upcoming The Iron Claw and award winning movies like The Wrestler. When the tales are good enough for even HOLLYWOOD, you know you’re seeing some serious shit….
But back to our original topic, CM Punk….or rather his actual name Phillip Jack Brooks.
Mr. Brooks is a more appropriate name for him as much like the character from the movie, his CM Punk persona is an egotistical maniac. But unlike the Marshall character, his vice isn’t killing people, but any chances he gets to succeed. Hence why I always refer to him as Mr. Brooks rather than his gimmick name.
THE BEGINNING
Let’s flash back to 2005 when the first signs of his hypocrisy and attention seeking behavior first started. He was at the time employed by Ring of Honor, an independent powerhouse run out of Philadelphia that helped to fill the void that ECW left behind. However, they more ran shows out of New Jersey, more specifically the RexPlex in Elizabeth Center off exit 13A, which is where I personally first started seeing them.
At the time, Mr. Brooks was one of their hottest attractions with his “Straight Edge” gimmick in which he’d be this smug asshole just because he didn’t drink or do drugs. After feuds with Raven and Samoa Joe, and of all people Ricky Steamboat, CM Punk won the ROH World Title in June of 2005, defeating Austin Aries. One wrinkle to this however was the fact that Mr. Brooks already had accepted a development deal to go to WWE.
Ring Of Honor was known much like ECW for its “smark” fans, “smark” meaning “smart mark”. It means a fan who is knowledgeable about the inner workings of an aspect of pro wrestling, be it the wrestlers, the organization, or both. Fans like this are usually frowned upon as a lot of times, they’ll believe the speculation or half-story and believe that to be the full truth. When writing things like this, I try my best to be objective and see all parts. Even THEN, I’ll try to send this to a few people and get cleared. Most of these basement dwellers wouldn’t even do that, immediately taking to their message boards instead of waiting for all the parts of the story to come out. Even when they are proven wrong, especially when it doesn’t fit their narrative, they still insist they know more than the wrestlers do. This is why a lot of the wrestlers hate them, and rightfully so.
But getting back to the point at hand, these fans made up a majority of Ring of Honor’s audience, still do as a matter of fact. They already knew about this pending WWE deal. They knew that Punk was about to leave. All of the sudden, the fans who prided themselves on never being “worked” or being all-knowing, were afraid that Punk was going to leave with their precious.
So, to his credit, Mr. Brooks did what would become a staple of his for many years. He decided to work the fans. Specifically, the ones who thought they knew everything. He acknowledged that YES he was leaving, that ROH is a shithole, and that he was leaving for greener pastures…..WITH the ROH world title. But all that paled in comparison to his biggest crime of all there….signing his WWE contract ON the ROH world title belt!
To many fans and even the wrestlers themselves, a championship belt is a symbol of the promotion they work for. It’s never to be denigrated in any way. To do so, means spitting on the company itself. It’s considered the WORST thing you can do.
Throughout history, we’ve seen this happen in many ways. There was Superstar Billy Graham ripping apart Bob Backlund’s WWF title belt, Greg Valentine smashing the Intercontinental title against the steel cage after he lost it to Tito Santana, Stan Hansen running over the AWA world title with his pickup truck when he was stripped of it, Mr. Perfect smashing Hulk Hogan’s WWF title with a hammer live on NBC, Hulk Hogan spray painting the NWO letters on the Big Gold Belt of WCW.
So, you’d think that these so called “smart fans” would remember all this and just realize it was part of the act, right? NOPE. They were FURIOUS. They threw things at Punk, cursed at him, ran him down on their message boards. Some even sent along death threats. Mr. Brooks was able to work the “unworkable” and all he needed was a pen and a piece of paper.
THE PIPEBOMB
Fast forward to 2011. Mr. Brooks is employed by WWE but not necessarily happily. After five years as a part of the main rosters of all three of their “brands”, multiple world titles, and some of the best and worst matches and angles of his career, he finally had enough. On an episode of Monday Night RAW, he laid out what is now known as his “Pipebomb” promo which took shots at not only how he was booked, but also upper management, in which he vowed to leave with the WWE Title on what was apparently his last night with the company.
”I’ve grabbed so many of Vincent K. McMahon’s imaginary brass rings that it’s finally dawned on me that they're just that, they’re completely imaginary. The only thing that’s real is me and the fact that day in and day out, for almost six years, I have proved to everybody in the world that I am the best on this microphone, in that ring, even in commentary! Nobody can touch me!
And yet no matter how many times I prove it, I’m not on your lovely little collector cups. I’m not on the cover of the program. I’m barely promoted. I don't get to be in movies. I’m certainly not on any crappy show on the USA Network. I’m not on the poster of WrestleMania. I’m not on the signature that’s produced at the start of the show. I’m not on Conan O’Brian. I’m not on Jimmy Fallon. But the fact of the matter is, I should be.”
But even more foreshadowing was what he said before he was cut off, especially now that WWE is now owned by Endeavor and not the McMahon family. Remember this part especially because it will be important later on.
”The reason I’m leaving is you people. Because after I’m gone, you’re still going to pour money into this company. I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. Vince McMahon is going to make money despite himself. He’s a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he’s not a billionaire? Because he surrounds himself with glad-handed, nonsensical, douchebag yes men, like John Laurinaitis, who’s going to tell him everything he wants to hear, and I’d like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law and the rest of his stupid family.”
Well, he managed to get most of that right in hindsight, as I said just before, it wasn’t his family that got the company, it was another media conglomerate. The same ones ironically who also own UFC, WWE’s biggest competitor and the main reason they were chased off of pay-per-view. Now they are under the same roof under the same company: TKO Holdings. My how things change in over a decade…..
But what made him popular with the WWE fans was the fact that he voiced their exact frustrations. He spoke truth to power and even though it was a furious employee complaining about their workplace, it confirmed what a lot of fans, especially the smarks that turned on him years ago, already felt about the place.
After this, now Mr. Brooks has a new facade. He’s now the “voice of the voiceless”. All he has to do is regurgitate what the fans feel about WWE and their talent and he’s golden. Scour the message boards, see who the marks hate this week and what they are saying, then use that in promos on TV. Rinse and repeat. Win the titles, sell the merchandise, cash the checks. This is where the ego of Mr. Brooks really started.
Right here.
He figured that he’s bulletproof now that he’s massively popular in his new gimmick of message board troll and decided to make money off it and look…..I can’t be mad at that. If the people are gonna be dumb enough to fall for it and give you their money, then fuck it. Take it. I can’t lie. I was a fan of his gimmick during this time myself. I can’t throw too many stones because as far as this is concerned, I live in a glass house.
But if we are going to tell the story of how we got to now in 2023, of why I’m just fed up, all of this needs to be said and rehashed.
Anyways, this formula worked until two major things happened that would see his first major bridge being burned.
Firstly at the Royal Rumble in 2013, he dropped the WWE title to The Rock. Yes, you read right….he dropped the WWE title to a man who’s done more movies in the previous decade than wrestling matches. This was done to add not only an explanation of why all of the sudden a supposed “Once in a Lifetime” match was happening TWICE now, but to also add higher stakes to that match.
Look at that blatant false advertising. But, that wasn’t the only problem. You see on that same show, CM Punk defended the WWE title against Chris Jericho. It’s generally a given that the WWE title match ALWAYS closes out Wrestlemania, no matter how high profile the matches were underneath it. This is why despite its notoriety, Rock and Hogan from Wrestlemania X8 went on underneath the Undisputed World Title match between Triple H and Chris Jericho.
But not in CM Punk’s case.
His match with Chris Jericho went on BEFORE the Cena-Rock contest. Naturally, neither man were happy about this development and even made strides to try and outwork the following match.
This wasn’t a new hatred however, this was simmering for a long time as this excerpt from that Pipebomb will attest to.
”I hate this idea that you’re the best. Because you’re not. I’m the best. I’m the best in the world. There’s one thing you’re better at than I am and that’s kissing Vince McMahon’s ass.
You’re as good as kissing Vince’s ass as Hulk Hogan was. I don’t know if you’re as good as Dwayne though. He’s a pretty good ass kisser. Always was and still is.”
Makes you wonder if this was just irony or was it planned to stick it to Mr. Brooks? I mean after all the two people he despised the most are upstaging him not once…
not twice….
not thrice…..
but now FOURFOLD:
By the same….two….guys….
They did give him a consolation prize however….he got to go one on one with THE UNDERTAKER…..
Which went as well as one would expect it would….
Yep….twenty ONE and Oh…..
But this all looks vaguely familiar….where HAVE I seen this before?
Oh yeah….Hell in a Cell 2009. I was there. The first ever wrestling show from the Prudential Center. I still remember the shock when we saw this match was going on first. It wasn’t even close. It was basically a ten minute squash. The veteran locker room leader not only taking Punk’s belt, but teaching him a lesson in humility.
Flash forward four years and ain’t a thing changed except Punk had no belt to take this time. Dwayne had already taken it a few months prior. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The powers that be had felt their former golden goose has gotten too big for his britches and needed to be knocked down a few pegs. Who the HELL is HE? NO ONE is bigger than this company…..NO ONE. Even Dwayne came back to us. Cena would follow during the SAG-AFTRA strike. He may have dipped out like a deadbeat dad when the strike ended, but he still came back. Remember THIS later too….
But anyways, back to our deal pal Mr. Brooks.
After an up and down year in 2013 which saw him placed all over the card, he reached his breaking point at the 2014 Royal Rumble which saw him eliminated by the future dictator of Knox County, Tennessee, Kane. The next night, he was scheduled for Raw to start a feud with Co-Kane the “director of operations", but he walked out. He told Vince McMahon and Triple H that he was going home and to lose his number.
By Wednesday, WWE stopped advertising him for future events and the fans were pissed as well as mystified. What in the hell happened? Why is he gone? Why did he leave? Who was to blame?
We’d finally get our answers in November of 2014 when Mr. Brooks appeared on his buddy Colt Cabana’s podcast “The Art of Wrestling”. This after saying back in July that he would “never ever return to professional wrestling”….you guessed it….remember THIS part too….
According to Mr. Brooks, he was suspended for two months for walking out on the company and that when his suspension ended, no one from the company called him. He then reached out about unpaid royalties but got the run-around when doing so. To top it all off, he was set to marry his now wife, former WWE wrestler AJ Lee. What did WWE give him on his wedding day? Something off the Bloomingdale’s registry? A rare copy of Amazing Fantasy #15?
Nope. They gave him his pink slip….
Naturally, after such disrespect, he decided to snitch on EVERYONE, most importantly, WWE’s doctor Christopher Amann, who Mr. Brooks basically said was nothing more than a quack.
”Doc is giving me... Doc's like 'Oh, you're sick, here's a Z-Pak.' They Z-Pak'd me to death, so much that in December I shit my pants on a SmackDown. Because that's what antibiotics do to you, right?”
”And that's the thing. 'Guys, I really feel like fucking shit. I have broken ribs and I have a concussion.' And they're like 'here's a Z-Pak, Phil.' And I'm like 'fuck.' I take the Z-Pak and I can't sleep. 'Here's another Z-Pak.' I take the Z-Pak and I shit my pants in the ring and I'm like 'what the fuck,' you know? And then after all that, they gave me an even stronger antibiotic and I'm like 'all right, if I take this maybe it will make me feel better.' It made me feel worse. I had fucking goddamn diarrhea for like three weeks.”
” So I roll under the fucking corner and I motion to Doc, I go 'I have a concussion.' And he was like 'what do you want me to do?' And I just started laughing and I was just like 'Doctor, you are one of the most worthless pieces of shit I have ever met in my entire life.'“
As a gal who’s had her fair share of shitty doctors when it came to Medicaid, I completely concur. But that’s not all is it? Of course it’s not! Usually when you have a shitty doctor, you don’t realize the gravity of the situation unless you go to another doctor and they point it out…
”And I was like 'all right, what are you going to do?' And he was like 'uh, I mean, that's like MRSA. I can tell right now, the thing's like purple and green.' He was like 'I can cut it out and you need to go to a hospital and get like an antibiotic IV drip.' And I was like 'well, let's say we didn't have time for that.' He just loaded me up with antibiotics. He cut the thing, he squeezed it, shit shot onto the ceiling. I've had tattoos in some of the most painful places, I've fractured my skull, Ryback has broken my ribs on a kick on purpose, I've wrestled three weeks after knee surgery; this was the most painful experience of my entire life.”
”But I sweat like I was in the fucking Sahara desert. I was clutching the table and this doctor was just squeezing this shit. And he kept squeezing this shit. And then fucking patched it up, he put a band aid on it, and he gave me three months of antibiotics. So I was like 'great.' And I asked him, I was like 'I've been on antibiotics for a long time. Why wouldn't it do this?' And he was like 'unless you're on specific antibiotics to kill a MRSA infection... like a Z-Pak is not going to do anything.'“
“No, he said 'how long?' And I was like 'I don't know, at least three months.' And he was like 'you should be dead. You could have died.' Look up staph infections, people, they're nothing to fuck with. So I get that taken care of. All of a sudden, I can sleep. And I slept, for a long fucking time.”
Of all the things he said on that podcast, and there was a lot of them, this was perhaps the most damning. WWE has had a history with shitty doctors. Hell, Vince McMahon almost went to federal prison over one such doctor. But, that was just for distributing illegal substances. This was completely different. Someone almost DIED because of the mishandling of their health. When you add to it that the company is notorious for not giving their wrestlers health insurance and instead has them see their own doctors and surgeons to get their health needs taken care of, you can see that this was a nightmare for the company.
So much so as a matter of fact, that the doctor in question sued BOTH Mr. Brooks and the person he did the podcast with, Mr. Scott Colton, for the sum of $4,000,000 and other unspecified damages. WWE, naturally, sided with their doctor in court. After all, you can’t have people believing that your own doctor is no better than a back alley pharmacist. ESPECIALLY when you’re a publicly traded company.
But in 2018, the case went to trial and it went in the favor of both Mr. Brooks and Mr. Colton, bring a close the most tumultuous chapter so far in the story of CM Punk.
Shortly after the two friends won their battle against the big bad wolf, they split with a furor that would make even the Mega Powers breakup look like a second grade school play. Scott took Phil to court saying that Mr. Brooks agreed to pay all of his legal bills for the case, as he should’ve seeing that his only act in all this was giving his best friend a platform to vent. Phil initially agreed but then after the case was over, refused to do so, telling his long time best friend to hit the bricks.
Fast forward a bit to the soon to be infamous “All Out” scrum, Mr. Brooks had this to say about the lawsuit:
”When it came down that he was gonna sue me, I asked to talk to him, he refused. When I asked for mediation he refused. I offered him money, he said it wasn't enough. He went ahead with the lawsuit and sued. It's his fucking funeral. I don't fucking care. He shares a bank account with his mother, that tells you all need to know what kind of character he is”
I know what you’re thinking because I thought it too that this sounds like Jewish stereotyping, but as I’ll leave that to the experts to decide. Besides all that, this wouldn’t be the worst thing said that night. We will get to that later….
Becoming Elite
It is now 2021….two years since the legal battle between the two former friends were settled with neither one getting jack shit. Colt is now part of a new upstart company that hoped to compete with WWE. It’s name was All Elite Wrestling. It was the evolution of an event created by a group of wrestlers known as “The Elite” that sold out the Sears Centre in Chicago back in 2018. All of this was done not really so much to stick it to WWE, but rather to shut up a long time dirt sheet troll named Dave Meltzer. Remember when I mentioned the smarks back in the ROH segment? This man is the leader of them. The worst of the worst. A man who lives in a literal fire hazard in San Diego and claims to be an expert on the wrestling business.
With a stacked card from top to bottom, it became not only one of the most important wrestling events of all time, it was one of the best. It made Meltzer cream his pants to the point that of the eleven matches on the card, he gave his four star rating to SIX of them.
Naturally, that kind of attention attracted people looking to capitalize on that success and it would happen in the form of Tony Khan. Son of Shahid Khan who is the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, he is not only the director of operations for that team, but a big time fan of pro wrestling and apparently Peruvian marching powder….
According to legend, passed down from the Gods of Islam, Shahid Khan had so much money, he didn’t know what to do with it all. One thing he DIDN’T want to do was spend it on getting his NFL team some good players. But one thing that he DID want to do was to have his children spend some of their inheritance while he was still alive so he could see them actually enjoy it and try to build their own empires with his multitude of riches.
Enter Tony Khan and his meeting with Cody Rhodes to secure financing for a new venture. Tony had seen that the Elite were looking to expand their success into their own company and owning his own wrestling company was a dream of his. He knew EXACTLY what he wanted to do with his inheritance.
On January 1, 2019, it was made official.
All Elite Wrestling was born and their next event would be the aptly titled “Double or Nothing”.
Leading up to that fateful August night in 2021, the company had its share of hits (Jon Moxley, WarnerMedia contract, COVID Tapings at Daily’s Place, Bryan Danielson), but also misses as well (Barbed Wire Explosion match, Joey Janela, Cody’s booking of himself). They needed that one major push. They already were going higher and higher in a short amount of time. They’ve already accomplished more in two years than most companies that tried and failed to challenge WWE.
What would be that catalyst?
Would you believe someone who hasn’t wrestled a match in over seven years?
YUP…..
He’s baaaaacckkkkk….
Mr. Brooks went into the closet, dusted off the CM Punk gimmick, did his best impression of Michael Corleone from Godfather III, and made his way to the United Center.
But he wasn’t just there to see the sights, he had a lot he needed to say that was building up in those seven years since McMahon fired him on his wedding day. Though in the interest of television, he had to give what I like to call “The Fucking Short Version”
”Possibly for me, the most important thing I'm going to say right now, and this is for everybody at home, this is for everybody who bought a ticket, this is for everybody in the back. If, at all through my journey, any of my personal choices or decisions related to my life made you feel disappointed or let down, let me just say… Let me just say… I understand, if you all try to understand that I was never gonna get healthy physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally, staying in the same place that got me sick in the first place.
Understandable. I mean their quack doctor couldn’t tell the difference between a fatty deposit and a MRSA infection, but are AEW’s doctors any better when they are the same ones who let Matt Hardy continue a match despite a concussion he suffered after a nasty fall where his head landed on concrete? Not only that but let him climb a LADDER while he was clearly dazed?!
To the point that Hardy’s wife had to take to social media to complain about it…..
But I digress, it seems like Mr. Brooks is a changed man and that CM Punk will be on his best behavior from here on out.
”August 20th, 2021. I'm back. And I'm back for you. I'm not gonna lie, I'm back for me too, and I'm back because there's a hell of a lot of young talent that I wish I was surrounded by 10 years ago. So insane that I sit back and I say, well, hell, they're here now, so why aren't you? Here I am. I'm back, because I want to work with that young talent that had the same passion that I had stamped out. I'm back because there's a couple of scores to settle in that locker room. I'm back for the young guys.”
Well, looks like that seven years away has made Mr. Brooks a more mature person, wouldn’t you think?
Well, it would only take a year for us to get the answer to that question. After being put on the shelf due to a foot injury early June of 2022, he was rushed back into action before being fully healed in August, in which he lost an undisputed title match to the interim AEW World Title holder Jon Moxley by and I shit you not, falling over after kicking with his bad foot….
A few elbows and a Death Rider later, Moxley is now the undisputed champion in AEW.
So, this looks like the end for now, right? Punk’s going to take time off and heal up proper. This was done to take the belt off of him so he can recover, right?
Oh no….you thought wrong….DEAD wrong….because guess who showed up the following week?
YUP. Literally a WEEK LATER, he’s back already, despite an injury to his foot, he signs a contract to face Moxley at All Out.
Now I know what you’re asking yourself. This company wouldn’t be that stupid to put a world title on a man who’s clearly injured would they?
Yes….yes they would.
But that would not be the ONLY dumb thing done that night.
Clearly frustrated with inept management and the inmates basically running the asylum in the form of the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Adam Page, he decided to drop another pipebomb. Though this time, it would not be in a ring, but during a press conference after the show.
Physically hurt and tired of the shenanigans he’s gone through since his return, he let loose not only the words we heard earlier, but also ones pointed directly at the Executive Vice Presidents of the company.
”The fact that I have to sit up here because we have irresponsible people who call themselves ‘EVPs’ and couldn’t fucking manage a Target, and they spread lies and bullshit and put into the media that I got somebody fired (Colt) when I have fuck all to do with him, want nothing to do with him, don’t care where he works, where he doesn’t work, where he eats, where he sleeps. And the fact that I have to get up here and do this in 2022 is fucking embarrassing. And if y’all are at fault, fuck you. If you’re not, I apologize.”
”What did I ever do in this world to deserve an empty-headed fucking dumb fuck like Hangman Adam Page to go out on national television and fucking go into business for himself? For what? What did I do? What did I ever do? Didn’t do a goddamn thing. It’s not [Tony Khan’s] position to make it very fucking clear. There’s people who call themselves EVPs that should have fucking known better. This shit was none of their business. I understand sticking up for your fucking friends, I fucking get it, I stuck up for that guy more than anybody. Okay? I paid his bills until I didn’t, and it was my decision not to.”
OOOOH, them’s FIGHTING WORDS….but he wasn’t finished yet as ended it all with the now infamous line of:
”I'm hurt, I'm old, I'm fucking tired, and I work with fucking children"
That’s the line that would get the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega into CM Punk’s dressing room in order to confront him over those comments. FINALLY, the so-called EVP’s would be doing the job assigned to them.
Unfortunately, for all involved, it would not turn out well.
During a six minute fracas, the Elite EVP’s forced themselves into Punk’s locker room. Then after words were exchanged, a chair was thrown that hit Nick Jackson’s eye. In the impromptu handicap match that followed, Punk punched Matt Jackson in the face, Punk’s buddy Ace Steel bit Kenny Omega’s arm, and soon after others entered the contest, from Christopher Daniels, to Brandon Cutler, to even Pat Buck and Michael Nakazawa.
Present for the entire ordeal was AEW’s head of legal Megha Parekh. So you KNOW that some shit was going to go down.
In the fall out, The Elite were removed from AEW television, stripped of their newly won trio titles. Ace Steel was fired, CM Punk was also suspended and stripped of his world title. You know, the one he should’ve never had in the first place because of his injury?
Anyways, rumors kept persisting that either Mr. Brooks was either fired, waiting to be released, or was going to come back on his own show.
We’d finally get an answer to those rumors on yet another AEW show debut, Collision. The show which debuted on June 17, 2023 was AEW’s Saturday night show and was meant to be its own branded show which in all reality should’ve been called “Punk and Friends”.
I mean look at this. It’s basically reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon. Now, I’m not making fun of the art itself. It’s a nice piece done by an extraordinary artist in Hal Haney who I follow on socials. But it’s the vibe I think of when I think of Collision.
So, now Punk’s got his own Elite-free show with all his buddies or people he pretty much hand picked. One would think he’s satisfied, but not yet….not just yet….SOMETHING is missing here…..
Ah yes, there it is…..a world title belt of his own. One he doesn’t have to share with anyone else and would you look at this? He even crossed out the “E” in AEW because it means “Elite”. MAN, this motherfucker knows how to hold a grudge doesn’t he?
Now, around this time, Toony Khan (not as misspelling at all, he reminds me of a cartoon character), is trying to get his buddies back together to do business. You see despite his ineptitude on literally everything else, he knows that a CMFTR vs Elite feud would draw money.
But, what Toony is other than Colombia’s biggest cocaine importer and money mark is a cuck. You see despite being the owner and money man in All Elite Wrestling, he’s a cuck when it comes to standing up to the Elite. What they want, they get.
When Khan went to his bosses at Chez Elite, they told him to fuck off. They said that if Punk could stay out of trouble for six months, then they’d agree to meet with him. Basically they tried to do to Mr. Brooks what Kevin Metheny (Pig Virus) tried to do to Howard Stern at WNBC Radio. They tried to cut his balls off.
It wouldn’t work as pretty soon AEW would find out just exactly WHY London is so infamous in wrestling circles as being the place where everything goes wrong.
You see in WWE, it’s pretty much become an inside joke that every time there’s a European Tour, you can start taking bets on who’s getting suspended, injured, or even fired. A plane goes overseas and it never comes back the same.
Remember the “Plane Ride From Hell” that made the news some time back that made everyone clutch their pearls in horror despite it being known for two decades to us wrestling fans? It was a plane from Great Britain to the US. Nothing has topped that before or since but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been incidents.
There’s a reason though these companies keep going back. They do GANGBUSTERS over there. They make more money during these tours than usually they make in an entire year. The fans in the UK are the most rabid pro wrestling fans in the world so when AEW announced a show to emanate from Wembley, the first time since 1992’s Summerslam, tickets went quickly and before long, they sold over 80,000 seats in a show originally designed for 40,000.
Wembley Stadium was also picked because it has become known as a second home for the Jacksonville Jaguars. To the point that there’s still rumors that should the NFL want a team in London, the Jaguars would be the natural choice. With that close of a relationship, no WONDER why Toony chose this place.
But, of course, in AEW fashion, there were many screw-ups and stupidity associated with this show. The first is that they booked this show literally a WEEK before their biggest show of the year in All Out. Then, instead of cancelling that Chicago show or pushing it back, they decided to have TWO pay-per-views in a single week. It wouldn’t be enough to have fans pay fifty dollars, no. They had to do it TWICE in a single week to get everything.
They had to pay fifty for a stellar stadium show booked to the gills and then pay another fifty for a card that wouldn’t fly to sell out a local independent show held at a high school gym. Khan insists that it was the fault of the cable companies and that he wanted to give a discount to people who bought both. However, the few people who still order Wrestlemania on pay-per-view instead of watching on Peacock know that for the past few years, it’s been thirty dollars a night for each night, a total of sixty dollars for the whole show. So, much like his “huge announcements”, Toony Khan is full of shit.
Add to the mix a new enemy to the House of Punk, one from an unlikely place.
Enter the former “Jungle Boy”, Jack Perry. The son of the late Luke Perry of “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Riverdale” fame, Jack decided to forgo the movies and scripted shows for something a little more “real”. He chose professional wrestling. One of the first signed by AEW in 2019, he became a fan favorite by wearing a loincloth, coming out to Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy”, and becoming a modern day Jimmy Snuka, minus the whole “killing his girlfriend” thing.
At this time, he’s recently turned heel on his new partner, Hook and is currently the FTW Champion, a distinction much like being the valedictorian at DeVry University, doesn’t mean shit. It’s a fake belt that somehow holds meaning the fans of old ECW lore. Jack’s penchant for wanting to be hardcore and “real” caught the attention of old Mr. Brooks who trying to be a locker room leader for the first time in his life, cautioned him against. But, Jack being the new kid on the block and the child of entitlement wasn’t going to let anyone tell him what to do.
So during his rematch with Hook for that title on the pre-show to All In, he took a bump on a legitimate car windshield and not the usual candy glass that’s usually used for a spot like that. It wasn’t enough for Mr. Brooks to just let the young man learn the hard lesson on his own, not after this gem during that same rant….
OH HELL NO! You done did it now, young man!
Mr. Brooks is furious with you now….
But, in what should’ve been a sign for Pepsi Phil to stay home with his wife and dogs as he insisted on doing while the talent was getting into London on Thursday and Friday, when he finally got into London on Saturday morning, there was NO ONE from AEW to pick him up from the airport despite them doing so for other talent and them telling Mr. Brooks they would. He has to resort to public transit and the FANS to take him to where he needed to go. It wouldn’t be a true independent promotion without the fans having to drive you around.
So, understandably, he’s already frustrated. Not just with the Elite, not just with management for stranding him, but now the silver spoon refugee pulls THIS?
OH HELL NO HE DIDN’T….
Unlike the “Brawl Out” back at All Out where pieces were murky at best due to very few witnesses and lots of lawyers, there were plenty of witnesses since it happened out in the open in what we call the “Gorilla Position”. It’s a term for the immediate place where the producers and the booker go over the finish and match with the wrestlers as well as any last minute instructions. It’s coined for the man most associated with that spot, the legendary Hall of Famer, Gorilla “Gino” Monsoon.
As “REAL GLASS!” was being picked out of the back of Jack, Punk instead of going up to see if he learned his lesson like a real locker room leader would do, decided to get pissed over the comments made on camera. He asked Perry if they had a problem, then dropped another one of his famous lines:
”You know I could kick your ass, right?!”
He then shoved shoved Perry and then put him in a choke which was quickly broken up by Samoa Joe who was at gorilla since he was Punk’s opponent for the opening match. After being shown up by Samoa Joe being an actual locker room leader and having his choke hold broken, Mr. Brooks decided to lunge at the owner of the company, which despite how much he probably deserved it, isn’t exactly the smartest thing in the world to do. Punk did what he does best and threatened to walk out. Again, Joe being the leader told Phil to just go out there, do the match, and then when they come back after, figure things out.
This is why if you ever watch the pre-show, they weren’t sure who was going on first as while Punk was melting down at gorilla, Toony escaped into the locker room to see who would be ready to open the show should the Punk match not occur. Ironically, it would be the Elite and their opponents who were the only ones fully dressed and warmed up to go out.
But, that was not to be as not only did Punk and Joe go out there and deliver a fantastic match given the circumstances, Punk actually went over. Instead of calling an audible and shooting on Punk to get the title, Joe was nothing but professional the entire time.
Unprofessional however, was the mark that was in the front row taking video of CM Punk “blading” himself to “get color”.
I’m sure that everyone knows by now, but most times where wrestlers bleed during a match, it’s because they use a razor blade hidden usually in their trunks, wrist tape, or sometimes their mouth that they used to cut themselves open. If done right, it’s a small little cut that can bleed a little like if you were to catch yourself shaving and then close up after a while neatly with no real scar. Some wrestlers however, go in deep and wind up with huge deep scars in their foreheads. Wrestlers like Ric Flair and Abdullah The Butcher come to mind when I say this.
So, the entire incident was followed up with indefinite suspensions for BOTH CM Punk and Jack Perry.
As of this writing in late November 2023, Perry is still suspended from AEW.
But for CM Punk, something far worse laid in store for him. After all, you cannot touch the owner of the company you work for, no matter how much he deserved it or how much he’s a doofus. If we could, then everyone and their mothers would be attacking their bosses on a daily basis.
So, Khan left his fate up to a non-existent “disciplinary committee”, which as we later found out was him literally just asking Bryan Danielson what he should do.
And that’s exactly what Toony decided to do.
On September 2, 2023, in a pre-taped segment because he dared not show his face in Chicago, he announced that AEW was terminating the contract of CM Punk with cause. How Toony made it out of Chicago alive that weekend is just as big a miracle as Jesus rising from the grave.
TWO MONTHS after he came back, he was gone again and seeing this, you wonder if that was either prediction or exactly what the Elite wanted to happen. They knew it was only going to be a matter of time before CM Punk self-destructed….and he did just that.
So for the moment, it seemed that this was really it this time. The CM Punk persona would go back in the closet and Mr. Brooks could live the rest of his life with his wife and dogs reading comic books and fighting in message boards about who’d win in a fight between Peter Parker’s Spider-Man and Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel.
Except….that’s not how it would play out.
Soon rumblings began that WWE and Mr. Brooks were in talks for him to return to the company. That couldn’t be right, could it? The man literally did nothing but bury them for the past ten or so years. He took them on in court. He lost his best friend over it. Why the HELL would he want to go back?!
Yep, pretty much the reason.
But even with all of that, he wouldn’t DARE come back would he?
WOULD HE?!
Why yes….yes he would….I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was. After all, this is the same company that brought back Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior like a hundred times, Bruno Sammartino, and Superstar Billy Graham. Why should CM Punk be no different?
But not everyone was happy to see him, and understandably so. After all, this man did nothing but disparage the place and everyone in it for the past decade. One of those people was Consolation Prize Champion, our friend and yours, Limpdick Lopez, a.k.a. Seth Rollins. He’s called Limpdick because of a naked pic shared by his ex on social media in which apparently it was very cold in that room as Little Lopez didn’t come out to play. Lopez of course, is his legit last name. But the fact that he has a child with Becky Lynch of all people kinda reinforces the cold room theory. I guess you gotta be packing some heat to land Becky Lynch.
But anyways, how did Mr. Lynch take Mr. Brooks coming back into the fold?
Oh my….he doesn’t look too happy, does he? Would you be if a man who did nothing but bash your workplace for all these years tried to come back like nothing happened? Of course not. He’s got every right to be mad about that.
So, one must wonder if this is Seth’s role going forward, being the gatekeeper to the AEW acquisitions? 2024 is coming up right quick and you know there’s bound to be a mass exodus.
But, surely we’d get some answers that first Raw after Survivor Series.
We got our first from Mr. Lopez.
”I don’t want to spend one more second, one more ounce of energy on that hypocrite.”
Fair.
No, he’s completely got a point there. This is where all the stuff I said to remember earlier comes in handy.
This was a man who promised that he was “done with professional wrestling”.
Yet he did….TWICE.
This is a man who swore he’d never come back.
He did.
Mr. Brooks addresses the crowd and kisses up to them the same way he did that first night in Chicago and on that first episode of Collision. Every time he comes back from something, he’s always got a promo that shows that when it comes to kissing ass, NO ONE is the master of it more than Phillip Jack Brooks.
Not Hulk Hogan, not John Cena, not Dwayne Johnson, not ANYONE except for CM Punk. The man who made his career being controversial and being as explosive as nitroglycerin when he doesn’t get his way has instead resorted to ass kissing to endear himself to a bunch of people who let’s be honest, you wouldn’t want to endear yourself to in the first place.
His cult is the type that bullied Kelly Marie Tran off of social media, who attack Iman Vellani simply because she knows more about the source material than they do, who frequently use racial slurs on online video games, the kinds of people that have never even heard of the concept of a shower. Think of any Comic Convention or Movie Convention you went to. Remember those obnoxious and disgusting people that you could smell from down the hall and across the room? Those are CM Punk’s type of fans.
But at the end of that canned spiel of his, he said something very important. The very reason he’s back in the place he’s reviled for so long…..
There you go. About damn time you’ve told the truth about something. It’s all about the money with you isn’t it? But wait…didn’t you criticize someone ELSE for doing the same thing not too long ago?
Oh don’t worry, Phil. You’re going to be sucking on that very blood money covered dick in Saudi Arabia REAL SOON.
Probably around April or October of next year…..unless you’re planning to be fired from WWE faster than you were that last go around in AEW?
So now, we wait.
Wait to see what’s going to happen from here on forward. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when the honeymoon phase ends. After all, this IS a new company with new management sprinkled with some familiar faces. It could be different this time. But knowing Mr. Brooks, it’ll be more of the same.
I initially started writing this to try and bury the hell out of him. But in order to make the most impact, I decided to tell his full story from start to finish as far as the controversies that surrounded him. I looked at old interviews, transcripts, wiki entries, my own memories, etc. While some of my perceptions of him have changed, the main point has not.
After writing this long article, the most I’ve ever published and written at once, I do have some respect for him. After all, a lot of this stuff was brought on him by the egotism and the idiocy of others. But by that same token, a lot of was also brought on himself because instead of handling things like a normal person would’ve, he decided to take matters into his own hands and make the situation worse.
So while he’s by no means the devil he’s made out to be, he’s not an angel neither. Phillip Jack Brooks is I’m sure a halfway decent person. But the second he goes into that closet and puts on the CM Punk persona, he becomes the world’s most vicious asshole.
Yet in spite of all his best efforts, he really WAS just a spoke on the ever moving wheel. As Steve Perry sang, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. Not even John Cena and Dwayne Johnson, two of Hollywood’s BIGGEST action stars could resist the call from Stamford because as everyone knows, when you see that 203 number, you pick it up.
Because despite how big you THINK you are in this business, it’s just like the sign Mr. Burns put up in Homer’s office….
Damn, writing this long piece, I need to get up because I’m hurt, I’m old, I’m tired, and I work with fucking children…..