As reported on Sunday by The Inquisitr , it is widely believed that former WWE Champion CM Punk was the masked man who interfered toward the end of a match at MKE Wrestling’s Friday night event at West Allis, Wisconsin. While Punk has yet to personally comment on the appearance or admit that he participated in the event, multiple publications, including Wrestling Inc ., were reportedly able to confirm the appearance with their sources. These sources also revealed some details on the original plans for the appearance, including one that would have allowed Punk to actually reveal himself to the audience.
On Sunday, Wrestling Inc . reported that one of the plans for Punk’s run-in was for him to hit his finisher, the GTS, on wrestler Daryck St. Holmes, just as he did on Friday night, but also for him to remove his mask after pulling off the move. As further explained, Punk instead left the ring after helping St. Holmes’ opponent, Ace Steel, pick up the win over his fallen rival. He then returned to his car, reportedly leaving the venue “immediately” while still wearing his mask.
As noted by Wrestling Inc ., one particular sign that CM Punk was the wrestler behind the mask at the MKE Wrestling show was the fact that the masked man was wearing the same black hoodie Punk wore earlier on Friday at a nearby Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament. Per WrestleZone , MKE Wrestling founder Silas Young also sent two tweets strongly implying Punk’s participation in his promotion’s Friday show, including one where he referred to a “Punk who showed up in a mask” at the event, and another where he capitalized the word “PUNK” and alluded to “former world champions” stopping by at recent MKE shows.
By the way, this was CM Punk, too. No I’m not joking. Here’s my story on the matter, as we posted earlier on Select. https://t.co/CHusDFY0Rx pic.twitter.com/aSZKvMHY1o
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) April 21, 2019
Although the above report from The Inquisitr cited a 2018 interview where CM Punk said that he is absolutely “done” with professional wrestling, one source claims that Friday night’s run-in at the MKE Wrestling event was not the first such stunt he has pulled since walking away from the wrestling business in 2014.
According to SEScoops , Robbie Fox of Barstool Sports tweeted on Saturday night that Punk had shown up “like three or four times” at independent shows since 2015. He added that some of the footage from those appearances was filmed for Colt Cabana’s Wrestling Road Diaries 3 documentary, but might have been cut after longtime friends Cabana and Punk became estranged from each other during their recent legal battle against WWE.