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I am sitting here at 3 AM in the morning, shaking my head.
With all the madness regarding CM Punk speaking out about his frustrations with the WWE machine and explosion that followed his interview with Colt Cabana on Cabana's podcast, the one thing that I thought would actually outrage wrestling fans last Thursday the most, never actually did.
If CM Punk hadn't walked away when he did, chances are the man would be dead.
Punk, if his version of the story is to believed - and it certainly appears it should be, as when the hell does anyone face WWE's legal team head-on and live to tell the tale without a gag order? - alerted WWE's doctor on three different occasions about a lump Punk discovered in his back.
By the third occasion, the lump was purple and hurting, yet his request to "cut this thing open" was turned down because he had to go wrestle for up to an hour in the Royal Rumble.
Then, after the Rumble, a concussed Punk demanded it be removed and was told he'd have to be on medication first and it was his concussion talking that he wanted it out now.
Of course, based on the timeline of the story, Punk had already been dealing with the lump, had been medicated to the point he sh** himself on national TV, concussions, injuries, etc. dating back to the European tour, which was November 2013.
That's two months of Punk working hurt, half-broken from injuries, squatting in corners just trying to "will himself" into getting back into the ring during tag team matches (as he explained on his return appearance on Cabana's podcast, which was released just a few hours ago) and dealing with an undiagnosed staph infection that was coursing through his body. Unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to train properly, is it any wonder Punk kept getting injured?
No one reading this is an idiot. The readership here especially knows how dangerous and painful professional wrestling is. You also know how celebrated the talents who have that finesse in the ring with the crisp timing and the ability to make others better are amongst fans like yourself. Punk was certainly one of those personalities, and perhaps even more celebrated than most, because he was the first "indy guy/ROH guy/whatever" to break through the mold and become an international celebrity - but by the end of his run, sickness and illness meant that Punk was playing the role of a stunt driver who was navigating hairpin turns in a car with no breaks inside a dark fog while his arms were tied behind his back.
We all know the story of what happened. Punk walked the day after the Rumble. He disappeared. He later revealed he was suspended, fired (great wedding present, by the way) and eventually learned he was actually suffering from a staph infection.
"You should have died," was the comment Punk repeated from the doctor that treated him and at the very least, saved Punk from a scary hospital stay and indeed, at the worst, Punk's life.
The reality however, is that by walking away, CM Punk, saved his own life.
Imagine if you will, Rod Serling style, a world where Punk sucked it up and kept working, concussed and sick. Sure, we get our CM Punk vs. Triple H feud and Punk kicks out of the Pedigree and gets the win with the Pepsi Plunge (my column, my fantasy booking). He gets more money, but how much more damage has he put into his body? How many other concussions would he have suffered? How many other issues with knees and elbows and shoulders and ribs?
Most importantly, how long does that staph infection go before the sack on his back bursts and Punk has staph coursing through his bloodstream? How long before CM Punk, literally, drops dead for professional wrestling?
CM Punk, the 14 year old straightedge skater kid who pulls himself out of the Chicago streets to become a huge sensation and millionaire, dead. It could have easily happened. CM Punk, wrestling tragedy because he put the business before himself.
Some of that comes from pressures put on you by management. Some comes from within because you are trying to prove you are the best in the rat race and that you deserve the money, the championship, the position and really, the attention of the boss that is putting the pressure on you to begin with.
Don't believe me? Let's take a quick journey, just off the top of my head.
Bob Holly, in his autobiography, goes into great detail about how he nearly lost his arm to a staph infection because WWE's doctors didn't properly diagnose it and John Laurinaitis pushed him to go on a tour of Europe because "he was needed." Holly ended up working meaningless battle royals and undercard matches but he was "needed." He was in pain every night and when he returned home, nearly lost the arm, was told the WWE doctor was responsible for him nearly losing the arm and ended up out of action for a long time before returning - and that was only after the last ditch effort to treat the infection, which had spread to the bones in his arm, worked. Had it not, amputation, caused undeniably by his decision to go do what his job asked him and put taking bumps over his own health.
For all of his insane antics and claims, Kurt Angle has long-claimed that he requested time off to deal with personal issues and was denied by Vince McMahon. One crazy version of that story that is often shared by friends of Angle is that Angle was told that he was an Olympic gold medalist and if he could win the medal with a broken neck, he could lick his issues while on the road. Whether that is true or not, I cannot tell you, but consider those stories passed around for the last decade and compare them to Punk's stories about being called to come back to work early, literally as he's walking out of a hospital. The anesthesia hasn't worn off, but we need you in a TLC match.
Then there's the worst case scenario, Eddie Guerrero. When poor Eddie dropped dead in a hotel room, his wife told WWE.com that he had been so "road tired" in the weeks leading up to his passing. Bob Holly in his book described it as basically WWE working Guerrero to death, including a depressing scene that literally stayed in the forefront of my brain since I read the book - Guerrero, in so much pain that he's laying on a trainer's table, unsure of whether he has to go to the bathroom or not. Think about that level of pain. Think about that level of commitment to drag yourself out and go shimmy your shoulders as you play "Latino Heat."
"You should have died," the doctor told CM Punk.
Eddie Guerrero did...and out of that death came the WWE Wellness Policy. People have knocked it and criticized it but one thing you can't deny is that it has helped and the WWE world is far better with it, then without it - but it's not a perfect system...and the Punk situation shows how far from perfect it truly is.
I've seen a lot of people criticize Punk for "not getting a second opinion." If you have a doctor that is supposed to be who you go to and is working for you, you are going to assume that person knows what they are talking about. That's why they work for WWE right? Then consider here is Punk, concussed at least part of the time, medicated, injured, no appetite and exhausted. In the midst of that WWE grind, why would he even think to doubt? When would he have the TIME to doubt? He's trapped on the wrestling treadmill, just trying to live up to the reputation and work ethic that's made him his name while also living up to what's required of him by WWE.
You listen to the doc. It's not like these sort of issues don't happen across the scope of life. Jonathan Larson, a well liked playwright and composer went to an emergency room complaining of pains in his chest. He was told it was flu or stress and sent home. Several days later, he dropped dead of an aortic dissection, which was missed.
The night Larson died, his musical "Rent" debuted. It went on to become a Broadway smash, a feature film and changed the entire Broadway community. Larson never got to experience any of that, because of an error made when he sought out help.
He was dead at 36 years old. The same age CM Punk is now.
Punk sought out help and no matter the cause, an error could have been the cause of yet another wrestling tragedy. Luckily, CM Punk gets to be a success story, however. He, thanks to his wife telling him to go to her doctor, was able to get healthy again. He, unlike Larson or Guerrero, gets to go on and experience what's going to be next in his life. He gets to succeed and fail and live off the money and the legacy and the brand he's built for himself. Comic books, acting, writing, kids, grandkids, whatever his life is going to bring for him. That's awesome.
But no one should be deluding themselves for a second - CM Punk was almost another pro wrestling tragedy and just because he narrowly avoided crashing while making that hairspin turn; just because he kicked out at two - doesn't mean that the wrestling business should be saying "Whew!", ignoring it, and moving on to the next story.
What pro wrestling should be doing is getting pissed that someone who carries none of the excuses of "He used steroids/painkillers/HGH/drugs, etc." could have ended up in the same place as a lot of other talents. Punk didn't have those demons and he still could have dropped dead.
That in itself should be enough to make WWE re-evaluate everything they do to protect the wrestlers and make sure it's enough. I'm not saying WWE will always do everything right and there will never be mistakes. No one will be able to avert every tragedy. No one.
But, when that tragedy could easily have been tied into mistakes (accidental or otherwise) that can be traced to the very system designed to assist and help WWE wrestlers, that should be enough to piss off WWE management.
The pressure to perform will always be there...but the pressure to perform while the same medical doctors who are protecting your best interests are telling you it's OK to perform, while they are also working to make the company happy? Now things start getting complex and you start to wonder where priorities lie and things start to get twisted...and THIS is exactly why WWE needs to really examine the system, because it needs to keep evolving so something like the Punk situation never happens again.
Maybe the CM Punk issue was just, genuinely, some mistakes. Maybe it was, as Punk colorfully claimed, "laziness." Maybe it's a mixture of reasons, but at the end of the day, the man could have died from what happened. WWE needs to see what led to things getting to that point. The last thing they can afford in the era of PG programming is another wrestling tragedy.
In all the talk of Punk vs. WWE and apologizing and wedding day terminations, etc., I really, truly hope that someone working in the Stamford offices or Dr. Joseph Maroon in Pittsburgh or just someone with a voice in the process and some common sense is looking at all this from outside the WWE bubble and realizing that medically, they pretty much failed CM Punk and he was almost a corpse on their watch. Then I hope that person has the courage to speak up about it.
If someone doesn't voice this and WWE doesn't look into things (and again, this is a complex issue) and evaluate what the hell happened, then CM Punk's other claims that WWE are only really trying to protect themselves against future claims so they don't end up in the same position the NFL is currently in, well, then they look pretty spot on...that's pretty damn depressing.
If Punk is right, not only would WWE have lost CM Punk, but they also potentially lose the chance to protect the next Punk......and that's why I'm sitting here, shaking my head at 3 AM in the morning, hoping that Punk isn't right, but fearing that he is. And, to make matters worse, a week later, I've yet to see anyone voice that concern...so really, for all those bumps and all those bruises and all that talk of how he was a quitter, how concerned was anyone that CM Punk nearly worked himself to death? How concerned were you?
CM Punk is a damn lucky man. He escaped like Indiana Jones from the Temple of Doom out of professional wrestling. I however, remain worried for the next guy who won't be lucky. They may not walk away. They might instead be left in the ground.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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