Yeah, yeah... he’s probably never coming back and we should just get over it, etc, etc.
But if you clicked to read this, you’re probably at least a little bit curious about CM Punk possibly returning to pro wrestling in general, and/or his doing so to face the current IWGP World Heavyweight champion Will Ospreay. So here’s the tea.
Ospreay called out Punk in his press conference after winning the belt from Kota Ibushi at New Japan’s Sakura Genesis earlier this month:
“Before I was champion, a man who sparked a whole lot of interest in pro wrestling, CM Punk said he’d like to face Will Ospreay. Now I have the biggest prize in pro-wrestling, so if you really want to prove you were the best in the world and not the best of a bad bunch, come over here and try and take this.”
Asked about the challenge during an interview with Digital Spy promoting his new movie Jakob’s Wife, Punk indirectly replied to the controversial Brit:
“I don’t want to give people false hope in answering Ospreay. But he’s for sure somebody that I’ve never wrestled before that interests me a lot more than, I guess, the corporate side of professional wrestling nowadays. New and different things are going to interest me more than doing the same old, same old. I always need new goals. I don’t know. Let’s see if he has it at the end of the summer and then ask me the question again.”
New Japan watchers probably catch the likely out Punk gave himself there, as many think Ospreay’s reign will be a short one to cement his main event credentials before he drops the belt to a bigger Japanese name, likely Kazuchika Okada.
But there’s enough there that Punk definitely gave some fans “false hope”.