Bully Ray has seen it all and done it all in the world of professional wrestling. Bully was part of one of the best tag team ever as Bubba Ray Dudley. Together with D-Von Dudley, the team won titles in ECW, WWE, WCW (after WWE bought it), TNA/Impact Wrestling as one of the best heels they ever had, New Japan, All Japan, and now he’s a regular in Ring of Honor. In addition to that, he owns two wrestling schools and is a regular co-host on the Busted Open Radio Show on Sirius. In other words, when a guy with his pedigree talks about wrestling, he knows what he’s talking about.
Recently, Bully was interviewed by Metro UK and they covered a lot about his career as well as how happy he is in ROH these days. The most interesting part of the discussion centered around former 5-time WWE World Champion CM Punk, who left WWE abruptly after the 2014 Royal Rumble when he was unhappy with how he has been used. Since then, Punk fought in the UFC, written comic books and has shown no signs of wanting to return to wrestling. Prior to going to WWE in 2006, Punk spent several years helping build Ring of Honor and he won the ROH World Title once.
Bully noted that he had only met Punk a couple of times and they had some friendly conversations, but he didn’t know him personally. Bully went on to explain why he thinks Punk should come back to ROH one day, rather than go back to WWE.
“I hope that he does step back into a wrestling ring one day, and I hope that ring is ROH. CM Punk obviously did not have a great relationship with WWE, who left a horrible taste in his mouth. He has been extremely verbal about that, so I don’t know why he would ever go back there. I do understand to go back for the money, but I’m not sure that he needs the money or he would want the aggravation or the headache of going back there.”
“CM Punk could do more for the wrestling world by coming back home to ROH than going back to WWE. Because what is there for him to do at WWE? There’s really not much left, and he’s going to have to do it their way. So if he needs for his ego to work the last match at Wrestlemania, then great, but I think he’s worth so much more to the wrestling world by breathing life into the business by going back to a company like ROH.”
The only thing that’s left for Punk to do in WWE is headline, as in wrestle in the last match, at a WrestleMania because he never did that and that was something that bothered him. Bully added some final thoughts talking about how the wrestling world might view a Punk return:
“If he shows up in ROH, the entire wrestling world will be buzzing about in a positive way. If he goes back to WWE, yeah people will be talking about it, but it’s also like, hey you said you were never going back, but now you’re back.”
It’s a good point, but we have seen enough people in wrestling that have said they’re “never” going back to WWE that end up back there. Names like Bret Hart, Ultimate Warrior, Bill Goldberg and Bruno Sammartino come to mind. What makes the Punk situation different is that he’s getting sued by a WWE doctor (after Punk ripped him on Colt Cabana’s podcast in 2014) and WWE is paying for the doctor’s legal fees (allegedly), so it’s easy to see why it would be harder for Punk to forgive and forget.
There’s also a big difference between WWE and ROH in terms of pay, but Punk likely has a lot of money saved from his main event run in WWE and UFC paid him well too even though he had just one fight. Punk doesn’t seem to be the kind of guy to be hung up on money.
What we don’t know is where Punk’s head is at in terms of wanting to come back to wrestling. If he ever does want to come back, he would be wise to check out what Bully Ray has to say because the man makes a lot of sense.
