Fightful Select deliberately reached out to people who dislike CM Punk to stress-test rumors of backstage heat surrounding his WWE return, and even his detractors reportedly had never heard the talk.
Sean Ross Sapp shared the detail during the July 5 Fightful Select Q&A, casting fresh doubt on claims of trouble behind the scenes.
The rumors stem from a Dave Meltzer report that traced minor CM Punk issues back to his WrestleMania 42 world title loss. Sapp said Fightful had already looked into that talk weeks earlier and came up empty across the board.
We already have. We spoke on those rumors a couple weeks ago. Those are the ones that he’s talking about. It’s just we’ve gotten nobody to confirm that. Nobody on the creative team, nobody in WWE, nobody that even disliked him,” Sapp said, per Fightful Select.
The last part is what gives the denial weight. Sapp explained he did not limit his checks to people who would defend Punk, going out of his way to ask known critics whether they had heard anything.
I reached out to people that I knew disliked him to see if they even heard that hot goss. They had not heard that,” Sapp said.
According to Sapp, the rumor was news to everyone he contacted. He compared it to recent pay cut chatter as another story his sources were not buying.
Like, it was news to them when I brought it up. Like we approached the pay cut rumors, all that stuff. Just nobody was buying it. So if it’s true, people in WWE just had not heard it. It’s always possible. It’s true,” Sapp said.
Punk’s Extended Absence Was Not The Plan
That does not mean everything went smoothly. Sapp acknowledged that Punk being away this long was not what WWE intended, while noting that real Punk news tends to surface quickly.
I will say, usually CM Punk news gets out there pretty swiftly, but him being off this long was definitely not the plan,” Sapp said.
Punk has been off WWE television since the April 20 episode of Monday Night Raw. WWE is expecting him back on July 6 at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, a return that could place him directly into the SummerSlam title picture.
Punk’s positioning makes the heat talk consequential, with reports linking him to a potential SummerSlam program against Cody Rhodes. For now, the backstage rumors look thin based on what Fightful was able to find.
