After I’m gone, you’re still going to pour money into this company. I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel is going to keep turning and I understand that. Vince McMahon is going to make money despite himself. He’s a millionaire who should be a billionaire. You know why he’s not a billionaire? Because he surrounds himself with glad-handed, nonsensical, douchebag yes men, like John Laurinaitis, who’s going to tell him everything he wants to hear, and I’d like to think that maybe this company will be better after Vince McMahon is dead. But the fact is, it’s going to be taken over by his idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law, and the rest of his stupid family.
When the Pipe Bomb was dropped, CM Punk was in pursuit of the WWE champion, John Cena. This would be the second time CM Punk pursued a world title after announcing his departure from a promotion, the first time being in Ring of Honor in 2005. Though the angle was a repeated story for Punk, to the WWE it was something entirely unheard of, and fans were enthralled with the direction CM Punk was taking both fans and the company.
At the 2011 pay-per-view in Washington DC, Capitol Punishment, CM Punk delivered a promo that would serve as the precursor to his Pipe Bomb. In it, he said, “I am a politician. I swim with sharks, and to be here you have to be one. But the difference between me and the politicians here in Washington DC is that I tell the truth.” This promo laid the groundwork for CM Punk to champion himself as the voice of the spitted wrestlers and WWE fans about two weeks later on RAW.
The promo itself is delivered in standard CM Punk fashion. He’s sitting down on the ramp, almost as if he’s having a relaxed chat with some friends. I think CM Punk’s body language is oftentimes overlooked, but it helped make his words much more effective; he wasn’t standing and preaching to the audience, he was sitting down to talk to both them and, in this case, John Cena. This makes the setting more intimate and makes his words more personal. He’s also wearing a Stone Cold Steve Austin t-shirt, which was by no means a coincidence. Steve Austin was another wrestler known to stand up to authority; he became a symbol of both disgruntled wrestling fans and the universal blue-collar worker. CM Punk compared his success to Steve Austin’s, saying that fans are drawn to “polarizing characters.”
CM Punk’s Pipe Bomb was polarizing, to say the least. It had several lines that were extremely taboo within the wrestling business, particularly within the WWE model at the time. The most notable of these is Punk mentioning other companies (New Japan Pro Wrestling and Ring of Honor) by name. WWE likes to pretend that pro wrestling doesn’t exist outside of their company to this day, and this illusion was even more strictly upheld in 2011. CM Punk shattered this illusion by naming other companies and wrestlers like Colt Cabana.
This taboo can be hard to understand for newer fans of the sport; in 2022, the professional wrestling scene is much more open. In companies outside of WWE, it’s not a shock to hear the names of wrestlers in other companies on one promotion’s show. AEW has been the pioneer in this regard, sending their wrestlers to NJPW, IMPACT, and AAA in Mexico. AEW also features talent from these rival promotions. Keep in mind that these kinds of relationships were unheard of in CM Punk’s WWE era, which made his name-dropping much more impactful.
CM Punk, in WWE’s storyline, was suspended for this promo. Punk’s rival John Cena was actually the one to come to Punk’s defense, arguing for his chance to finally face CM Punk for his title. Cena even went so far as to threaten to quit his job if Punk was not reinstated. Cena got his wish, and CM Punk returned to tell the audience that he had actually been offered a lucrative contract from Vince McMahon to stay with the company. Televised negotiations predictably fell through, however, and CM Punk reasserted that July 17th would be his last day with WWE. If he won the title, it would effectively be hijacked from the company.
On July 17th, 2011, CM Punk defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank in his hometown of Chicago. Though the match itself was not perfect, the atmosphere in the arena made it absolutely electrifying. The crowd was firmly behind their icon CM Punk, who after the bell rang grabbed his title belt, blew a farewell kiss to an infuriated Vince McMahon, and ran out of the arena.
Ever since the Pipe Bomb was dropped on June 27th, 2011, fans have been debating if CM Punk’s promo was in fact the unscripted chef d’oevre that he and the WWE have been pushing fans to believe it is. This debate is yet another instance of the blurred lines between reality and fiction that are ever-so-present in the world of pro wrestling.
To me, this promo represents a pretty bizarre tactic often used by wrestling companies. Wrestling promoters, whether it be Vince McMahon of WWE or Vince Russo of the late WCW (or even Tony Khan of AEW), are keenly aware of how fans get fed up with the product. In Vince McMahon’s case, he chose to harness this anger and made himself an on-screen villain in his own show. This way, fans are actually encouraged to hate him, and it blurs the line between genuine anger toward the company and hatred of the cartoonishly evil Mr. McMahon on TV. It’s an ingenious plan to try to use fans’ discontent to your advantage. It essentially gives the company an out; when outsiders and unknowing fans question the hatred of Vince McMahon, they will assume that those angry with the real-life product are just talking about the villain Mr. McMahon on TV.
So, over a decade later, what do we make of CM Punk’s Pipe Bomb? Many wrestling fans uphold both CM Punk and his promos as icons of the industry. Punk was a champion of the people (not to be confused with the people’s champion) who had fans hanging onto and analyzing every word he said. Though, the likelihood that Punk’s Pipe Bomb was actually the unscripted jab at WWE authority that some fans believe it to be is really implausible. Punk makes some incredibly valid points. The part that rings most true in 2022 is when Punk explains that Vince Mcmahon “is going to make money despite himself;” the year 2020 and 2021 were the WWE’s most profitable years to date, despite major scandals and numerous firings in the name of “budget cuts.”
Whether CM Punk spoke his pure, unadulterated truth that night or not, the fact remains that the Pipe Bomb was curated outrage approved by the very people CM Punk was speaking out against. While it was incredibly groundbreaking in 2011, I’m afraid the Pipe Bomb has lost much of its luster over time. Much of this is due to the goodwill Punk has burnt out in recent weeks through his controversies in AEW. Now more than ever, people are questioning whether CM Punk is truly the “Voice of the Voiceless” or a grifter who saw an opportunity to make a name for himself.