Original subtitles

CM Punk, one of sports entertainment's

biggest lightning rods.

I'm not here to make friends.

I'm here to make money.

Make the pledge to stand on my side.

One nation under Punk.

The Brash, unapologetic and unpredictable

voice of the voiceless.

BITW.

Best in the World.

Today, we celebrate the very best from the best in the world.

What's my name?

It's WWE's Greatest Moments that comes to you right now.

Acknowledge me.

Oh God.

Stone Cold with a beer bath.

This is surreal.

Look at this.

He slammed him.

Welcome everyone to WWE's Greatest Moments.

I'm Michael Cole.

And on this edition, we showcase the defining moments of the

career of professional wrestling's rebel with a cause,

CM Punk.

Since his WWE debut in 2006, Chicago's favorite son has

proven time and again that he will do whatever it takes

to prove that he truly is, as he self proclaims

the best in the world.

Never has that been more tested than his recent embattled

rivalry with the Scottish warrior, Drew McIntyre.

Punk suffered a torn right tricep.

I prayed for this and it happened.

I did not come here to make a mortal enemy,

but that's exactly what I have done.

Our first moment brings us to the PLE aptly named, Bad Blood,

where these two would wage war inside the demonic structure

known as Hell in the Cell.

When I was growing up, that was the match that

two people truly hate each other and get into that cell.

Let out everything and legally beat him up.

This will not be a five-star wrestling classic.

It is going to be mutually assured destruction.

It wasn't about winning or losing, it was about showing the

other person that, "Hey, I'm better than you."

And I think that reminded a lot of people

of what wrestling can really be.

It can be brutal.

And a toolbox to the face of McIntyre.

Oh my God.

Drew McIntyre landed very nasty on the steel steps, and

it looked like he broke his back.

And it all comes down to that moment.

Punk's got a chain.

Go to Sleep to the chain.

Tonight-

in the devil's playground, there's only room

for one bully, CM Punk.

They say, you never forget your first.

And we certainly haven't forgotten the time that CM Punk

burst onto the scene in the ECW Revival.

Our next moment goes all the way back to 2007.

CM Punk went up against ECW Champion, John Morrison,

and attempted to capture his first world title.

A very focused, a very driven athlete,

is the challenger, CM Punk.

John Morrison and the ECW title, to this day,

I think is one of my best matches ever.

For whatever reason, me and him just clicked that night.

It was one of those things where we just went out there.

And during the match, I was feeling it like,

"We got something here."

Can he do it, Joey?

Bang.

Bang.

GTS.

Oh, he did it.

He wanted to be the top guy,

and the top company in the world.

He wasn't gonna stop, no matter how many people told him he

didn't have the look, he didn't have the size,

he couldn't do this, couldn't do that.

Somebody like CM Punk, as champion, it really kind

of gives you that-that infectious motivation.

You're witnessing brand new star.

In 2013, CM Punk was looking to conquer The Undertaker's

unprecedented WrestleMania, undefeated streak.

20 men had tried, 20 men had failed.

CM Punk needed to go to depth he had never been before.

And after the passing of Paul Bearer,

The Undertaker's longtime manager.

Oh yeah.

CM Punk knew what he had to do

to rattle the unshakable Dead man.

This means everything to The Undertaker,

and it doesn't mean a thing to me.

CM Punk and his manager, Paul Heyman, spent weeks

taunting The Undertaker, with the urn that supposedly

held Bearer's ashes.

Oh yes.

Things came to a dramatic head just one week before

the show of shows.

CM Punk, the disrespect that you've shown Paul Bearer,

will cause you to pay the ultimate price.

When you're a villain, you gotta embrace being a villain.

You gotta be able to go all the way.

What is this?

I didn't necessarily want to get cheered.

I wanted to be a bad guy.

Oh, yeah.

Is it Paul Heyman?

Initially, I felt like it was too disrespectful,

but then I was like, Paul would love this.

He would love that his character is still relevant at this point.

Oh, look out.

That-that's Punk.

He was disguised as a druid ambushing Undertaker.

This guy is the legend that I get to wrestle.

There's no half measures.

Look out.

Oh my God.

Do you wanna dance with the devil?

I did this to you.

I did this to you.

Well, how do I gain an edge?

I'm gonna dump ashes out of the urn onto The Undertaker.

This guy is sick.

It gave me an extra bite to really just go over,

over the line, and go overboard.

This is disrespectful.

One of the most intriguing wild cards in WWE,

is the coveted Money in the Bank briefcase.

It grants its holder the ability to cash in, and make a

sanctioned world championship match any place, any time.

But there's only one way to gain possession of that valuable

briefcase, and that's to climb the ladder,

and retrieve it high above the ring.

WrestleMania 24, CM Punk would get his opportunity to compete

against six other superstars for the chance to be known

as Mr. Money in the Bank.

This next bout is the Money in the Bank ladder match.

I always had a chip on my shoulder because I felt early

in my career I was maybe told that I didn't belong.

I was maybe told that I wasn't gonna make it.

And I have to prove why I belong.

Oh.

Oh my God.

Good Lord.

You have to capture the imagination

of the audience consistently.

And that's why I say, one of the overall, just greatest ladder

matches of all time would be that of Money in the Bank

at WrestleMania 24.

GTS go to sleep, gold standard.

Codebreaker with the help of a ladder.

And I think that's eliminated Punk.

Jericho in a position to win it.

But Punk says no.

Oh no.

Oh, Jericho hung up from the-the tree of woe.

And there goes Punk.

Everything seemed bigger that day.

I just knew I had a lot to prove.

And I had a lot of eyes looking at me to produce.

Can punk win it?

He did it.

CM Punk has done it.

It was not the poster the WWE guy.

In order for him to achieve that, that almost started the

new generation for the entire company.

Seven men putting it all on the line,

but this night it's all about CM Punk.

With the Money in the Bank contract fully in his grasp,

CM Punk awaited the right moment to cash it in.

And that opportunity would come in June, 2008, when an enraged

Batista took some frustrations out

on the World Heavyweight Champion, Edge,

leaving him ripe for the picking.

A raging Batista.

Wait a minute.

CM Punk is doing it.

Here was a good guy.

Cashing in on a bad guy that everybody hated.

A savage.

That's what savages do, they cash in.

He's cashing in Money in the Bank.

Edge.

The GTS.

The Go to Sleep.

The cover.

Punk has done it.

Punk is the champion.

Punk is the champion.

Now, he is a bonafide WWE superstar.

He now has the ammo to go out there and wrestle with anybody,

and it's legitimate.

CM Punk has done it.

Mr. Money in the Bank has become Mr. World Champion.

I was over the moon with the whole thing.

I was like, "This is it.

Balling my fist and swing at the world, and here we go,

CM Punk's on top.

I'm going to show people what I can do."

As we'll see a bit later on in the program, CM Punk returned

to WWE in 2023 after a 10-year absence.

CM Punk is home.

One superstar in particular didn't accept him with open

arms, Seth "Freakin" Rollins.

When you abandoned this place, I put it on my back, I

made it stronger than it's ever been.

I left because I had to, and I came back because

they chanted my name.

A decade of pent-up anger would lead these two rivals into

the main event of the historic Raw premiere on Netflix.

He left the WWE for his own reasons.

To be someone that had stayed

and been a part of the company, felt very personal.

This rivalry between CM Punk and Seth "Freakin" Rollins that

is over 10 years in the making.

How could that not be the main event?

On his shoulders looking for the Go to Sleep.

He connects with Punk's finishing move.

With all the trash that's been talked between Seth Rollins and

CM Punk, to see Seth Rollins throw Punk up for a GTS

was just incredibly gratifying.

Rollins with another GTS.

Boom.

Of course, that doesn't last long.

Oh, Stomp.

Now, using Rollins finisher move.

I really felt that whoever won that main event,

was basically going to be the face of Raw on Netflix.

Punk.

GTS.

Into the cover.

CM Punk wins.

I was extremely happy with how that turned out.

That was special TV there.

BITW.

Best in the world.

In 2013, CM Punk was reveling in his incredible 400-plus days

as WWE champion, proving night after night that he was the best

in the world, not only in the ring, but on the mic.

I am the WWE Champion and I will cement my legacy with the

focus and the spotlight on me.

His true test would come with the most electrifying man in

Sports Entertainment returned.

CM Punk, with his opportunity to test his verbal skills and

finally get his chance to go one one-on-one with "The Great One".

The Brahma Bull is back.

What made me Rock interesting was

young kid on a world stage

in front of The Rock, maybe not proven.

If people tuned in they were like, "Who's this guy?"

I always want to get to that next level.

You know, The Rock knows, they know, in 20 days, time is up.

I want to step up to that plate.

I want to see those 99-mile-an-hour pitches that

The Rock is going to be throwing

because I can hit it out of the park.

Whenever you decide to grace us with your presence, I'm going

to kick your ass because I'm the best in the world.

Is there a doctor in the house because a man who claims

that he's straight edge, he's running around here looking

exactly like Popeye on crack.

You can sing songs and you can rhyme and you can do your

tired lame ass schtick.

I just want you to know that come Royal Rumble,

you can't leave a mark on the champ's face.

Your arms are just too short to box with God.

Not a lot of people from our generation get a chance to go

one on one with The Rock.

That validated his status as

being in the upper echelon all time.

The best in the world is a self-imposed moniker

that is hard to argue with.

If there was a superstar that could truly test CM Punk's

boastful claim, it would be the GOAT, John Cena.

Controversy would surround their WWE Championship match

at Money in the Bank 2011.

July 17th is the day my contract with World Wrestling

Entertainment comes to an end.

Trust me when I tell you, I am leaving with

the WWE Championship.

CM Punk's contract expiring that night.

What would the future hold for the richest prize in the game?

It is a night where the entire landscape of WWE can be changed.

There probably wasn't any more

high stakes of a wrestling match

you can have than CM Punk working without a contract.

Also, the Number 1 contender.

Also, wrestling in his hometown of Chicago.

I think that was definitely the most high pressure situation

I've ever been in, in my life, not just my career, you know.

Everything I've ever done, it led me up to that point.

At midnight tonight, CM Punk is leaving this company,

and he may be doing it with the WWE title.

I was really leaving.

This is as real as it gets.

You have these certain moments when you're in that ring,

you can step outside and enjoy it as a fan.

There were moments in that match that I could just be like,

"Man, they're going to be talking about this one

for a long time to come."

He and John Cena went out there.

Man, they tore the house down.

Attitude Adjustment.

Oh.

What?

Wow.

It's CM Punk.

GTS connecting.

Oh my God.

Oh.

"Hey, my contract is up, but I'm champion."

That's crazy.

CM Punk is going to leave Chicago

with the WWE Championship.

I think he just kissed the WWE goodbye.

Punk wins the WWE title and then hops over the guardrail

and takes off in the crowd.

It's just one of the most incredible scenes.

I jumped right in the car and I drove home.

CM Punk shockingly walked out of Chicago

that night as WWE Champion.

While he ultimately remained in the company, it was actually a

few weeks earlier where he vented some frustrations

to the WWE Universe.

In one of the most memorable segments in WWE history,

he let them know in a candidly explosive moment,

simply known as the Pipe Bomb.

I have a lot of things I want to get off my chest.

They called CM Punk's promo the Pipe Bomb

because instead of doing a traditional wrestling promo,

CM Punk starts saying all

this stuff that you don't say on television.

Oops, I'm breaking the fourth wall.

It's the only time in my adult life that anybody has called me

on the phone and been like, "Hey, I just was watching Raw.

You should look at this."

I am the best wrestler in the world.

That promo is an entire WWE career of frustration

being just let out.

I've been the best ever since day one,

when I walked into this company.

I've been vilified and hated since that day because Paul

Heyman saw something in me that nobody else wanted to admit.

That's right, I'm a Paul Heyman guy.

It blurred the lines of reality.

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.

He doesn't really care about what he says.

The short term blowback will be worth

the long-term goal that he has.

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.

We used to talk about how it was one

of the greatest promos of all time.

Let me tell you a personal story.

All right?

Do we do this whole bully camp?

He felt he had some more to say.

They cut his mic off.

Right?

You want to extinguish this voice?

I'm the best thing you got.

I think everybody who's ever worked here on any level

has felt the frustration.

You know, it was almost a start of a revolution.

I'm the best in the world.

So we're now down to the end, number one on the countdown.

As CM Punk continued climbing up the ranks of WWE greats,

the grind would eventually catch up with him, and he

would walk away from the professional wrestling

industry in 2014.

But the fans never forgot.

For nearly 10 years,

the WWE Universe continued to chant "CM Punk."

And as the men's War Games match came to an end at Survivor

Series 2023, CM Punk would give the WWE Universe the moment

they've waited a decade for.

Cody Rhodes, leading his team to victory

at War Games.

The crowd's happy, and the zoom-out goes out on the War

Games, and you're like, "Okay, this is it."

Even the credits start rolling, and like, time freezes.

I don't really have the words to explain, like,

how that moment makes me feel.

And there's a big part of me that's still there.

No one knew that Punk was coming back, and I speak on that

from a backstage perspective.

Oh my God.

Holy [bleep].

Oh my God.

Everybody watching jumped out of their seats.

It felt so unbelievable.

It was like, "Is Punk crashing the show?"

I've had a couple of big moments where I think in my

head, "It's not going to get any bigger than this,"

and much to my shock and amazement,

it keeps getting bigger.

I have the fans to thank for that.

CM Punk made some pretty big waves, cementing the unbreakable

special bond only he shares with the audience.

That'll do it for this edition of WWE's Greatest Moments.

We hope you enjoyed this look back at the very best of the

best in the world, CM Punk.