In this interview with Scott Fishman of the Miami Herald, CM Punk talks about his ECW title shot at this Sunday’s December to Dismember PPV, his wrestling past and more. Some excerpts:
You can probably imagine going and working nine years in front of 50 people to thousands and thousands of people. To have 17,000 in a sold out Wachovia Center in Philly chant my name in the Survivor Series in my WWE pay-per-view debut was just awesome. It was seriously a dream come true …
I know there are a lot of guys that I ask advice from … I worked with Ricky Steamboat in Ring of Honor, so I know I can always go to Ricky. William Regal is there watching not only my matches but every single match on the show … If ECW and SmackDown! are taping together, he will watch all the SmackDown! shows and stay after to watch all the ECW stuff, giving advance to me and everybody around. If I have a question to ask anybody, I don’t hesitate to ask because a lot of the veterans are there to help out. Chris Benoit is there and the behind the scenes producers I also get advice from. There is such a wealth of wrestling knowledge behind the scenes at WWE right now. It is pretty ridiculous not to ask guys opinions. Even if I had a perfect match, quote, unquote, I would still try to bounce different ideas and `what if’ situations to Arn Anderson or Dusty Rhodes to just get a different angle and opinion on it …
Drugs and alcohol are just something I never wanted to do … It has no interest to me. I’ve gone and hung out with the boys. The thing about the wrestling business is nobody is going to force you to drink. A lot of times they just want you to come hang out with the boys to get to know you. The comradery of the boys is something that is important to a lot of the guys. If you’re always not going out and staying to yourself that may rub people the wrong way. They might think you are kind of a loner or better than you really are. It’s always a misunderstanding. I’ve gone out with people while they’re drinking, and I’ve never been pressured to take so much as a sip.
In another column, Alex Marvez talks about the possible “extinction” of ECW, including the problems it’s had since the brand’s re-launch (Angle leaving, RVD and Sabu arrested, Big Show wrestling hurt, etc.) which you can read about here.
