Column: CM Punk’s new brand of authenticity emerges in Saudi Arabia

This is a column that represents the views of the author and not the website.

We all change over time as does our outlook on life and our values, influenced by the different people we meet and experiences we have in our years above ground. For better or worse, it’s evolution, baby.

CM Punk is no different other than the fact his changes are displayed, packaged, and sold for a bigger audience.

The last half decade-plus has been quite a ride for Phil Brooks. Out of wrestling by his own choice, his tiptoe back in — FS1’s WWE Backstage — ended in mid-2020 as the world was in pandemic lockdown. He returned to wrestling in AEW in August 2021, was part of one of most infamous backstage brawls in modern wrestling history in September 2022 followed by months and months of unanswered questions, shot his way out of AEW a year later in spectacular fashion (assisted along the way by failed leadership), and then returned to WWE in November 2023 as a conquering hero.

A lot can happen over six minutes or six days, much less six years. Apparently, enough changed in Punk’s life in that time where he went from telling the largest sports podcast in the world in 2019 that he’s “not doing a single” Saudi Arabia show to not just doing that, but embracing the country in a 2025 about-face that was so brazen you almost have to appreciate it.

But, the man who wore his brand of “I’m not them, I’m you” authenticity like a tattoo for two decades has been changing before our eyes and behind the scenes for years. Punk may still be authentic, but just with a different set of principles and values that appeal to a segment of society you and I aren’t part of.

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If you’re reading this, you know the story. If you stumbled upon this column, allow me to catch you up in three bullet points:

• In January 2020, after that 2019 Pardon My Take appearance and ahead of WWE’s February 2020 Saudi Arabia return, Punk tweeted at The Miz to “go suck a blood money covered d**k in Saudi Arabia.” It was during a time when that country wasn’t exactly a top destination to travel to and was coming just over a year after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
• After a turbulent few years in AEW, Punk made his surprise return to WWE in November 2023 as part of the Paul Levesque era.
• This weekend, Punk wrapped up his first visit to Saudi Arabia – completing a storyline with John Cena at Saturday’s Night of Champions that danced around his past issues with the country/government where that damn heel Cena put the questions of his authenticity front and center.

This brings us to last Friday’s NOC kickoff party. A bemused Punk was getting booed (partially because of his previous comments and mostly because he was going against the retiring Cena) when he miraculously heard a fan in the front row who asked for an apology, someone two Post Wrestling observers thought might have been planted.

With an backing orchestra of “shut the f**k up,” Punk then told the crowd “it legitimately had nothing to do with Saudi Arabia.” He woke up crabby, you see, and wrote a mean tweet. He said he apologized to Miz and then apologized to the man, adding “I sincerely apologize to you and all of Saudi Arabia” which got a big pop.

It didn’t stop there.

“I am not perfect by any means. Sometimes, as human beings, we screw up. The beautiful thing is everything is a lesson learned and here I am. You’ve invited me to your beautiful country and I am grateful to be here. Thank you very much,” he said.

It was an incredible moment as if he fully decided to embody everything Cena accused him of in this promo. It was reportedly replayed for the live SmackDown crowd on Friday, was Christmas for his critics, an “incredibly proud” head-nodder for management, a gut punch for his staunchest supporters, and for those in the middle like me, it was validation of what we knew deep down for some time. Calling him a fraud feels like a bit much, but he ain’t that guy anymore and who knows if he ever was.

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Any issues with Saudi Arabia were checked at the door when he made his WWE return in what I assume was a a miraculously timed epiphany. We all knew Punk was going and this public conversation would happen. Wrestlers don’t skip the Saudi shows like they did in the Vince McMahon era when the threat level and public outcry felt much higher — a coincidence given what has gone on these past few weeks in Iran and Israel which involves a certain U.S. based WWE Hall of Famer. The lack of an allergic online reaction helps make those decisions easier.

It was the degree in which Punk’s change of heart happened that caught me off-guard, but honestly, I shouldn’t be that surprised. It’s career self-preservation.

As Cena aptly mentioned in the aforementioned promo, Punk isn’t against the billionaires – he is a millionaire himself. He indeed is Mr. TKO and exactly where he wants to be at age 46 with the end of his in-ring career a lot closer than the beginning. He’s with the biggest wrestling company in the world, making a ton of money, is popular, goes to events like the Netflix Tudum, has the respect he craves from the NXT kids, and is still put into big spots like Saturday.

He is also set up nicely to transition to the UFC analyst and/or broadcasting table given how much he loves MMA and Dana White’s love of him. He’s even said he wants to run NXT one day, something that seems as likely to happen as him returning to fight in the UFC as long as Levesque is around. The “CM stands for Company Man” jab has never seemed more apt.

Throughout all this, I couldn’t help but think of a few guys Punk idolizes in Terry Funk and Harley Race who both seem like they were men of conviction. Would those guys have done the same thing in Punk’s case or would they have stuck to their guns? Is that even possible in 2025 when posting on Instagram and cozying up to whoever pays the most seems to matter most to a good portion of the world? Maybe our standards are too high, but Brooks the man seemed different. I guess I was fooled too.

In the aftermath, Punk loyalists also have to question whether he will flip on other social issues in the future that he has proudly supported on TV like the Chicago Teachers Union, trans rights, abortion rights, etc. You might read that and say, “Of course he would never turn his back on those causes. He believes in them!” But would you have said the same thing in January 2020? That’s the point: he’s lost the benefit of the doubt

Don’t worry, though: he might change his mind. Just give him six years.