Vince McMahon fully aware of C.M. Punk pipe bomb promo content

Vince McMahon was fully aware of and approved the content’s of C.M. Punk’s pipe bomb promo in 2011.

During an interview with Ariel Helwani, former WWE writer, Brian Gewirtz, detailed what went into the promo segment and how real emotions reared its head into the story.

“The real element to that was C.M. Punk’s contract was coming up,” Gewirtz said. “And there were backstage tensions, you know, in terms in of performer and management, and not knowing whether Punk was going to re-sign or not. But in terms of the actual segment itself, whether you want to call it a worked shoot or what have you, that was something Vince and the company knew that we had it scheduled in segment 11 for C.M. Punk to come out and cut a promo.

“Punk brought so many elements of that to himself, in terms of sitting down as opposed to standing –  I know he worked with Ed Koskey on it but the vast majority of it was coming from Punk’s heart and his brain,” Gewirtz said. “But at the same time, I know going into it there wasn’t anything he said or was going to say that was [unexpected]; I know he improvised a little on the spot, but Vince McMahon and everyone had a version of it in front of them. They knew when to cut the mic, knew to cut to Cena in the ring selling. It was part of a television show, but there were real life overtones to it, and real life passion into it. This wasn’t like Punk cut the promo, the mic went out, and then he’s giving everyone hugs backstage going, ‘Oh this is great, I can’t wait until next year.'”

C.M. Punk is the current AEW World Champion and returned to the company for the first time since Double or Nothing last week on AEW Dynamite. Punk had surgery to repair an injured foot, but appears fully recovered. He helped Jon Moxley fend off the Jericho Appreciation Society and then faced off with Moxley as the show went off the air.

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