20 WWE Wrestlers Who Hated Each Other In Real Life
3. CM Punk & Everybody Else
It’s tough to capture all the bad blood surrounding CM Punk’s WWE career in a single slide, but let’s try.
In 2009, Punk and Jeff Hardy were embroiled in a bitter onscreen rivalry that cooked up some fantastic matches. Punk was heavily-pushing his “straight edge” gimmick at the time, and with Hardy’s noted personal issues, it was a natural feud.
Unfortunately, the actions that played-out on television were no more than an extension of their backstage heat. The drug and alcohol-free Punk allegedly shunned Hardy backstage and, a few years later, Hardy took to YouTube to openly bash Punk, take credit for his success, and call him a “straight edge nerd” in a particularly vicious, life-destroying insult. Ahem.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Ryback is another wrestler with whom Punk had considerable issues both onscreen and off. Taking to Colt Cabana’s podcast a little while after his WWE release, Punk was scathing in his criticism of Ryback, stating that he hated working with him due to his “dangerous” wrestling style, and personally blaming “The Steroid Guy” for “taking 20 years off his career”.
Then there’s Triple H, who took the brunt of Punk’s indignation following his release. Punk has stated that he never had good vibes around Triple H, and always got the impression that Hunter was looking at him sideways, but it runs a lot deeper than that.
Punk was particularly vocal in speaking-out against part-time employees who only worked three or four shows a year going over full-timers on PPV. Punk was booked to lose to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XXVIII and, later that year, he lost to Triple H himself at Night of Champions.
While it’s best to take his words with a pinch of salt, Punk claimed that Triple H refused to put him over, and blamed The Game for cutting off his momentum in 2011 when he was in the midst of his hottest run yet.
CM Punk remains one of the most abrasive personalities in modern wrestling history, and while Triple H is at the helm it’s unlikely we’ll ever see him back in WWE.
Not that he’d want to come back, anyway...