Shot Taken at CM Punk During Dolph Ziggler Promo

In its second episode since its return to Thursday evenings, the Jan. 22 showing of “Smackdown” kicked off with recently re-hired WWE Superstars Dolph Ziggler, Ryback, and Erick Rowan. Introduced by Daniel Bryan, each of the three stars would receive microphone time to address the WWE Universe about their “firings.”

Within Dolph Ziggler’s promo, there was an interesting reference made to CM Punk. Ziggler spoke emphatically:

“I’d rather sit here in this ring and face any punishment than sit at home complaining on some podcast!”

The comments, which first came to light on Wednesday, Jan. 21, when “Smackdown” aired abroad in some countries, stem from CM Punk addressing his WWE departure on Colt Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast. A lengthy tell-all story from Punk’s point of view was released on American Thanksgiving, quickly becoming a hot controversial topic in the wrestling industry. A week later, Punk appeared on another “Art of Wrestling” episode. This time around, it was more casual, with Punk and Cabana taking fan questions.

About two hours before “Smackdown” went on the air in the United States, a time where Ziggler’s comments were already out there, Punk tweeted the following:

httpss://twitter.com/CMPunk/status/558411485832282113

It is obviously unclear if Punk was in fact referencing the promo. The tweet could have definitely been about something else, potentially his peers in UFC being skeptical and brash about his arrival to the company.

Editor’s Note

I’m curious if Ziggler came up with this line on his own, or if he simply had to say what was written in the script. My gut feeling is that it was the latter.