CM Punk reveals he cried for eight minutes after heartbreaking WWE moment; AJ Lee had to console him
The Royal Rumble is an event that has a lot of mixed emotions for CM Punk. Upon his admission, he doesn't know what winning feels like, but he certainly knows what losing in it does. However, beyond just that, he has suffered greater heartbreaks in the Rumble than just getting eliminated, and he revealed that he cried for eight minutes last year before his wife, AJ Lee, consoled him.
In a sit-down interview on WWE's YouTube channel with Jackie Redmond, CM Punk discussed the ghosts of his past regarding the Royal Rumble—from the night he walked out of WWE in 2014 to last year, when he suffered a tricep injury caused by Drew McIntyre.
CM Punk admitted that he isn't over the heartbreak from last year's Royal Rumble. He even admitted that he cried for eight minutes and was eventually consoled by his wife, AJ Lee:
"I don't know if I'm over it 100% yet. I think coming back in a short amount of time [six months] and doing SummerSlam I think that was like the first hurdle. I think, most recently, doing the Christmas loop and wrestling four-five times in a row, five nights in a row, I think that was another hurdle. I think the last hurdle, so to speak, is this year, this Rumble that's coming up. But for the short term, I gave myself a good eight-minute cry before I called my wife and told her, 'Hey, I got hurt.' [...] I could cry for 45 minutes, and the instant I actually try to vocalize something like that to her, I'll still blubber. That's life." (3:49-4:29)
In response, AJ Lee told him to come home, that she would take care of him, and that she would help him get over it—which they did together.
Sami Zayn had a brutal clapback to CM Punk, saying they aren't on the same level.
On the penultimate episode of RAW before the 2025 Royal Rumble, the Second City Saint took a dig at several of his competitors in the Men's match, including Sami Zayn, who he said wasn't on his level.
The following week, Sami Zayn's response to CM Punk was clear and concise - he said that between the two of them, one of them has headlined WrestleMania, and it's not Punk. This was a brutal clapback, as Punk stated that he wanted to headline WrestleMania for over a decade.
He was even going to headline WrestleMania 40 Night 1, but the tricep injury prevented that. Meanwhile, just the previous year, Sami Zayn headlined Night 1 of WrestleMania 39 when he and Kevin Owens dethroned The Usos. For Owens, that marked his second WrestleMania main event in a row.
It's something that Punk will finally look to accomplish as WrestleMania heads to Las Vegas.
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