CM Punk got one past the rundown and Netflix caught it on the way out.
Speaking to Cathy Kelley backstage before he lost the Undisputed WWE Championship to Sami Zayn in Mexico City, Punk went after Zayn’s first title reign and the hand injury that followed it.
If you think I came to Mexico City, where some of the greatest pro wrestling fans in the world reside, to lose my title to a guy who broke his hand jerking it to his nine-day fluke title win, then you’ve got another thing coming.
The middle of that has since been bleeped on Netflix.
Fightful notes that the jab was not listed on the internal rundown for the show, which points to Punk going off script rather than anyone approving the line in advance.
It lands in the middle of a run of these. Netflix heavily edited the August 31 Raw, pixelating the blood on Jey and Jimmy Uso during the parking lot attack, cutting the video feed and bleeping through the broadcast. A source told False Finish that Netflix made that call, citing content restrictions in several of the countries where the show airs, and Triple H responded by posting the unedited footage to his own account.
WrestleVotes reported on Fightful Select afterwards that people in WWE’s post-production department feel handcuffed at times by the restrictions, and that some internally did not expect them to be this intensive.
Punk’s reign ended at 67 days. Zayn took the title back with help from Kevin Owens, Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae, hitting Punk with the belt behind the referee’s back before the Helluva Kick.
