CM Punk Recalls Receiving Acting Offer That WWE Sent To John Cena

CM Punk was on a recent episode of Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette, and they touched on the topic of unionization after Punk suggested that UFC fighters should unionize. Punk stated his belief that WWE Superstars will not unionize because of the "bootlickers" that will undercut any attempt at unionization.

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"Nothing just because there's no such thing as 'the boys'. It's a trope," Punk stated. "'Oh, we're on the road, and these people are our family.' And like I said, once you're out of the bubble, you don't hear from anybody anymore. Those people don't pay your bills. There's always going to be a handful of people that will undercut everybody else just to get ahead a little bit, and there's there seems to be a lot of people that, not only are, just by nature are bootlickers. They just love the taste. You're supposed to lick the boot. You're not supposed to eat the entire thing."

Paquette then brought up Zelina Vega, who was released by WWE after breaching her contract by breaking WWE's third-party edict. Punk addressed her situation by bringing up G4 signing Xavier Woods as their new host, and he questioned why Woods was allowed to sign with G4, but Vega was not allowed to pursue her own third-party ventures.

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"So this is where I'll get controversial, and I'll piss a lot of people off," Punk prefaced. "I don't know Xavier Woods. I met him in Atlanta. He was doing a dark match one time. He came up and asked me for advice, or maybe it was 'hey, did you see my match?' I don't know, and he was always a good wrestler. He could always do everything, but there wasn't a character for him at that time. And obviously, he's become like a pretty big Superstar. And from what I understand, he's big on Twitch. He's a big video gamer and all this other stuff.

"So I don't know what's going on with his Twitch channel. So I don't want to speak out of turn about that, but I just saw he was petitioning to get a job with G4. Does WWE get money from that? Why is it okay for him to do that, but Zelina Vega can't have a Twitch? That was always my thing, and I think people have labeled me a 'complainer' or 'whiny' because I would always be the guy that would be like, 'wait, why is so-and-so able to do this' because there was always outside interest and not just for me."

Punk recalled a Superstar receiving a role on a TV show, but when the offer went to the WWE office, the role went to John Cena. Former WWE Superstar Lisa Marie Varon was on The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast, where she revealed that WWE does not let talent know about all of their Hollywood offers, and Punk expressed that similar sentiment on Oral Sessions.

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"I remember one particular person got a role playing a wrestler because they knew somebody who was producing this television show for this certain channel, and then when it got shuffled to the office, all of a sudden, 'no, you can't do that.' And then the next thing you know, John Cena is doing it," Punk recalled. "They would literally take every single request that came through, and they would funnel it to the one person that they wanted to be the face of the company."

Punk also recalled his own offers that he never knew about like a pinball game that would be based around him. He revealed that THQ were adamant that Punk be on the cover of their video game instead of the other suggestions WWE made.

"It was a bachelor party for my buddy Jensen. We went to a pinball factory here in Chicago where they make a lot of the pinball games," Punk recalled. "We're there, and the guy giving us the tour, the guy who owned the factory and all these pinball machines in this company, he was like, 'yeah, we wanted you on our WrestleMania WWE pinball machine. They said no,' and I was like, 'what do you mean they said no?' They were like, 'no, don't put him on that. We want this guy on it,' and we were like, 'oh, whatever. We just did it.' Still to this day, I'll hear stuff like that where people will be like, 'oh, we reached out, and we had this offered for you.' It's like when THQ wanted me on the cover the video game.

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"I was forwarded the emails where they said, 'no, no no. Sheamus, Miz or John Cena' To their credit, Bryce, who is the head of All that stuff, he was like, 'no, no, no. We want CM Punk. He's like literally the guy right now, and that might change in six months, but we don't care. He's the popular guy.'"

Paquette agreed with Punk revealing that she has also found out about offers from other places that she had no idea about. She revealed that one one of those offers included a cooking show with wrestlers.

"That stuff so infuriating," Paquette added. "I've had so many people say things like that to me since I've left too. 'Oh, we pitched this for you. We wanted you to host a f–king cooking show with wrestlers,' and I'm like, 'yeah, no s–t. That would be great.' Nope, they don't give it to me. They gave it to Bo Dallas.

"I love Bo Dallas. Go get it. Do what you gotta do, but like f–k. I could never catch a break. I couldn't get anything done! I couldn't get a podcast off the ground like give me a f–king podcast. Nobody gives a s–t about that, but still nope, you can't do it. No dice."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

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