CM Punk had a great reason for insulting Stephanie McMahon during the pipe bomb

CM Punk become a main event level star in WWE during the summer of 2011 after his famous Pipe Bomb promo. Even today, many wrestling fans still want to know all about the inner workings of the critically acclaimed Pipe Bomb.

One of the most well known lines from the promo occurred right near the end, when Punk referred to Stephanie McMahon and Triple H as Vince McMahon’s “idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law.”

During an interview on the Heelturn - Der SPORT1 Wrestling Podcast, Punk was asked how much of the Pipe Bomb was real. While answering that question, Punk explained what he did to ensure the promo was approved by Vince:

“I mean, all of it. I had to make an outline for Vince, and I didn’t say anything I wrote in the outline. I just know I needed him to agree, and then I went out there and I said whatever I wanted. Because I knew what I wanted to say. I knew I wasn’t stepping over the line. I knew nobody was gonna be pissed at me.

And the thing with live television is, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. If I would have asked him to say all that stuff, he would be like, ‘Don’t mention Brock [Lesnar]. Don’t mention Paul Heyman.’ Those guys were, at the time, persona non grata. He would have been like, ‘What the hell is Ring of Honor? Don’t mention New Japan.’ But I knew to make it the special piece of art that I wanted it to be, I had to go out there and say all that.

So, I wrote up a mock draft of it and he said, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ He asked me to add something making fun of Stephanie. And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And I went out there and I did it. And it was good, so he wasn’t mad at me.”

Punk was also asked why his white hot push that summer was cooled off within a few months. He doesn’t name names, but he believes some higher ups had it out for him:

“I think because certain people in management wanted it that way.”

He also thinks WWE is churning out so much content that it’s hard to maintain a high quality level:

“They’re a content company. They do three hours of Raw, two hours of SmackDown. They tape all kinds of other stuff. There’s NXT. They’re on the Network. They’re on Peacock. They’re on FOX. They’re on the USA network. It’s just a lot. And I think when you have that much, I think quality slips.”

“It’s just constant. You gotta be on everything...When Rock came back on the first Raw of January, whatever year that was, I was on like eight segments on that show. That’s over-saturation with a capital ‘O’. To rely on me that much, but then to say that I wasn’t really that good, is a little bit ridiculous. But they like their revisionist history.

I think there’s a happy medium somewhere that we’re finding with AEW where everybody doesn’t need to be on every show, and we have tons of main event talent that can fill all those other gaps.”

Do you think Punk is right about AEW finding a happy medium with allocating it’s television time across the roster without overexposing the top stars?

And what do you make of Vince asking Punk to make fun of his own daughter during the pipe bomb?