Former WWE Champion CM Punk is taking an indefinite hiatus from WWE.
Punk met with Vince McMahon on Monday before RAW and informed him of his decision to take time off. Punk’s WWE contract expires in July and has been very vocal about the possibility of leaving for good this summer. We’re told that his decision to leave is not due to an injury, but because he is unhappy with the handling of his character and the overall direction of the company.
Punk had been scheduled to wrestle Triple H at WrestleMania, but is no longer expected to work the show and is no longer advertised for any upcoming live events. He’s stated in multiple interviews that his one remaining goal in WWE was to main event WrestleMania. In recent months it became clear that he was not going to be part of the main event this year. He’s also said to be very frustrated with WWE bringing in part-time wrestlers (The Rock, Brock Lesnar, Batista) and giving them main event programs instead of the guys who have been working full-time for years and giving the company everything they have.
We reported on Monday that WWE had completely overhauled the script for this week’s RAW, which was not completed until an hour or two before the show went on the air. The rewrites were partially due to the huge negative reaction to the Royal Rumble pay-per-view, however it was CM Punk’s announcement to management that he was leaving that also caused a lot of the changes.
There are some reports that Punk was scheduled to wrestle Antonio Cesaro on RAW in an Elimination Chamber qualifying match, which would have seen Cesaro defeat Punk with help from Kane. Punk was not backstage at RAW and he was not backstage at Tuesday’s SmackDown tapings
Punk has been working through several nagging injuries over the course of the last year and has overall been very unhappy with the reality that WWE no longer sees him as “the guy.”
Punk tweeted the following cryptic message on Monday:
Thanks for all the support. Keep being you guys, it's pretty cool.
— Coach (@CMPunk) January 27, 2014
* WWE Makes Changes Made To Elimination Chamber & WRESTLEMANIA After Fan Backlash To Royal Rumble
(Information from the Wrestling Observer was used in this report)