{"id":764748,"date":"2026-06-27T13:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T13:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/764748\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T13:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T13:31:14","slug":"cm-punk-teases-return-to-wwe-smackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/764748\/","title":{"rendered":"CM Punk teases return to WWE SmackDown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WWE fans haven\u2019t seen CM Punk since the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania. But Friday night, he dropped a hint that implied he might be returning to WWE television shortly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Punk spent his evening doing commentary for Cage Fury Fighting Championships at the Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, Illinois, a short drive from his hometown of Chicago. As his fellow announcers were plugging a future event, they asked Punk if he would be there, noting it was not in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs that a Friday? I don\u2019t know,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Fightful\/status\/2070701335419261176\" rel=\"nofollow\">Punk said.<\/a> Upon confirmation that the event was on Friday, Punk replied, \u201cIt\u2019s a Friday? I don\u2019t know if I can make it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>WWE SmackDown, of course, airs on Friday nights.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Punk\u2019s colleagues at CFFC then asked the wrestler if he had any \u201cbig news they could go viral with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI gained 20 pounds recently,\u201d Punk replied. \u201cIt\u2019s not good weight. This suit\u2019s a little tight, ladies and gentlemen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Punk\u2019s last appearance in WWE was at WrestleMania Sunday, where he lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Roman Reigns, and then the next night on Raw, when he teased a future challenge to Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rhodes typically wrestles on SmackDown. Should he survive his triple threat match against Sami Zayn and Gunther at Night of Champions tomorrow, he will need a new challenger for SummerSlam.<\/p>\n<p>Punk was apparently in a joking mood all night. Earlier in the evening, CFFC\u2019s John Morgan noted that they couldn\u2019t get Punk to go on the road anymore, so they brought the organization to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t travel anymore,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Fightful\/status\/2070677474527072616\" rel=\"nofollow\">Punk said.<\/a> \u201cMy horse is sick.\u201d This was a reference to an old wrestling story about Terry Funk backing out of being one of Jerry Lawler\u2019s masked knights at Survivor Series, leaving a note for Vince McMahon that simply read his horse was sick.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.f4wonline.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"preferred-source-link\"><br \/>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Google-CTA.jpg\" alt=\"Google Icon\" class=\"google-icon\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.f4wonline.com\/news\/wwe\/new-mens-wwe-id-champion-crowned\/?utm_source=navigation-previous&amp;utm_medium=internal\" class=\"gms-prev\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previous story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WWE fans haven\u2019t seen CM Punk since the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania. But Friday night, he dropped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-764748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}