CM Punk hints at an indefinite break during the first RAW after Bad Blood. What will follow then becomes immediately clear.
The wrestling league WWE is facing a hot fall after a turbulent weekend – but he seems to be taking a step back for a while.
At the TV show Monday Night RAW, former WWE champion CM Punk hinted that he was taking an indefinite break to lick his wounds after the brutal Hell-in-a-Cell match against his opponent Drew McIntyre. However, it became abundantly clear on Monday that Punk will return sooner or later and that it is not yet known who his next rival will be.
CM Punk: “I would like to say ‘see you soon’, but…”
“I’m going home,” Punk explained when he opened the show on the first RAW edition after the big Bad Blood event on Saturday: He hadn’t seen his wife in about five weeks and needed to recover, but he couldn’t say how long: “I’d like to say ‘see you soon’, but I just don’t know if we’ll see each other again soon,” said the crowd favorite, who returned to WWE last fall after nine years.
Punk, who turns 46 at the end of October, ended his long-running feud with McIntyre in Atlanta on Saturday, beating the “Scottish Warrior” in a Hell-in-a-Cell match. What will happen as soon as Punk returns has been hinted at for some time and became clearer on Monday.
Upon leaving the arena, Punk encountered Seth Rollins, with whom he engaged in a stare-down. The “Visionary”, who himself returned from a break last week, was temporarily involved in the Punk-McIntyre feud. Now he has not only announced that he wants to continue his revenge on heavyweight Bronson Reed, he has also threatened Punk with the words: “Come back soon so I can end your career for good.”
Rollins and Punk were supposed to have a WrestleMania match for the World Title planned this year – Punk’s triceps tear in the winter had intervened. Rollins instead lost the title to McIntyre, who in turn was defeated by Money-in-the-Bank winner Damian Priest.
Gunther beats Zayn – now a clash of the champions with Cody Rhodes
In the meantime, Austrian phenomenon Gunther holds the World Title and defended it on RAW in a hard-fought main event against Sami Zayn.
WWE then made the next fight for Gunther official: at the Saudi Arabia show Crown Jewel, the Viennese will face WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. It’s not for any of the titles, but for the newly introduced “Crown Jewel Championship”, which WWE CEO “Triple H” Paul Levesque unveiled on Saturday and presented as a new annual tradition. On November 2, women’s champions Liv Morgan and Nia Jax will compete against each other for an analog belt for women.
In the near future, Gunther seems to be facing a match against legend Bill Goldberg, whom he took on at Bad Blood, while Rhodes is likely heading for a WrestleMania match against megastar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who appeared at the end of Bad Blood. Neither was seen on RAW, which ended with a confrontation between Rhodes and Gunther.