CM Punk Says Vince McMahon Ghosted Him After Secret WWE Return Meeting in 2019

CM Punk just pulled back the curtain on how close he came to returning to WWE years before his actual comeback—and how it all fell apart after a secret handshake deal with Vince McMahon.

During his appearance on My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox, Punk opened up about what really happened behind the scenes between himself, Vince, and Triple H. According to Punk, there was a lot more going on than fans ever knew.

“Oh yeah. I remember everything. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that I feel like is just for us. To me, being a wrestler at this level — there’s a certain prestige to it. At least I feel there is. I’m very proud of being a wrestler. So there’s a lot of things that I don’t necessarily want to share with fans.”

Punk compared wrestling to other major sports when it comes to maintaining some behind-the-scenes privacy:

“It’s no different than being in the Stanley Cup finals and not letting cameras in the room. It’s no different than playing a World Series game and certain people don’t get access. I want to kind of protect that part.”

Then Punk addressed the fan theory that WWE never really wanted him back, which he flat-out denied:

“I think the Twitter and the internet perception is, ‘I tried to go back to WWE and they didn’t want me, so I did the FOX show.’ That’s not exactly what happened at all.”

He then shared how it all got started—directly from Vince:

“I had a hilarious clandestine meeting in the Borgata in Atlantic City with Vince [McMahon] and Triple H… What is it, 2025 now? This had to be 2018 or 2019. It started because Vince just started calling me. I had agents telling me, ‘Hey, they want to talk to you.’ And I was like, ‘Whatever, I’m not interested.’ Then Vince just started calling me directly. He was like, ‘Hey, I’m eliminating the middleman. We gotta…’ and I was just like, ‘This is insane.’”

After agreeing to meet, Punk said it felt like a step forward. Until it wasn’t.

“So we set it up. I was like, ‘Oh well, I’m gonna be here.’ And he said, ‘Alright, we can get there.’ We had a meeting. We had a handshake agreement…and then he ghosted me.”

That dead-end handshake, Punk explained, was what killed the deal: “So that’s why it didn’t happen.” But even though it didn’t result in a return, it did something else: It started to thaw the icy relationship between him and Triple H.

“That was probably the first time that me and Triple H started chipping away at any problems or drama that we had in the past. That was the first instance.”

By then, Punk said he was over the grudges. It was all about business:

“At that point, I was very much like, ‘Yeah, okay. Pay me, whatever.’ I had taken some stuff personally, years had gone by, and I was over it. I recognized that it’s a business — you don’t want me to take it personally? Just pay me.”

Eventually, Punk would make his WWE return in epic fashion. After nearly a decade away from WWE, CM Punk shocked the wrestling world by returning at Survivor Series: WarGames in November 2023 in his hometown of Chicago. The moment closed out the pay-per-view and went viral instantly. The reaction was deafening, and it signaled that the once-burned bridge with WWE had finally been rebuilt—this time under the leadership of Triple H, not Vince McMahon.

The return wasn’t just a nostalgic cameo either. Punk’s comeback led to major storylines with Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre, and others, putting him back in the spotlight and cementing a new chapter in his WWE legacy.

Punk didn’t hold back in explaining how close WWE came to pulling the trigger back in 2019—only for it all to fall apart thanks to Vince’s silence. The good news? That failed attempt opened the door to the relationship that eventually led to Punk’s full WWE return years later.

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