Behind the scenes of CM Punk joining WWE Backstage

In a legitimately shocking turn of events, CM Punk showed up on WWE Backstage this week, complete with his “Cult of Personality” entrance theme. It was an actual moment, even if he’s technically working for FOX, because it meant his appearing on a WWE branded show, surrounded by WWE stars, in a move signed off on by WWE.

Now, FOX has given us another cool video, a behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to the big moment:

First, he was nervous:

“Yeah, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you with a straight face that I wasn’t nervous at all. It’s a space that I haven’t been in in five, six years, compounded by the fans who have always clamored for me to come back to this space, so even if it’s not me actually wrestling I still think this is a... it feels like a big deal, you know? But nerves are good. If you’re not nervous, that means you don’t care enough to make it entertaining, and I plan on making this very entertaining.”

Then he makes clear just how FOX pitched him on what his role would be:

“When the idea was broached, like ‘would you...’ I honestly thought it was going to be like a commentary gig, honestly, like I would call wrestling matches. I didn’t know how receptive I was going to be to that idea. When they told me it was goingto be like an analyst and it was described by FOX executives as being ‘we have A-Rod for baseball, we have Troy Aikman for football. We now have WWE’s property. Starting in November we are going to have an analyst show, and we would have you. You would be the ‘expert’ to speak on things because your authority is you were there, you did it all, you can talk about it.’ And that interested me, very much so.”

That sure makes it sound like he’ll have a much more regular role than initial reports indicate but we’ll have to wait and see on all that. We won’t have to wait long.

See you next Tuesday night!