Sky Sports has an interview up with WWE star CM Punk. Here are some highlights.
The wrestlers he admired while growing up:
“That’s a hard question to answer because there are so many. Shawn Michaels is definitely one and he is pretty relevant because he’s still with the company. Ricky Steamboat and Bret Hart as well, those three guys are probably the big ones.”
On the influence of veterans backstage in WWE:
“There are plenty of veterans involved that don’t actively wrestle: Arn Anderson, Ricky Steamboat, even though he just competed at WrestleMania and Backlash, Mike Rotunda [aka Irwin R.Schyster], Dean Malenko. These guys are still around even though they’re not in the ring, they’re still there with their wealth of knowledge and they’re there for the young guys to pick their brains. It’s important to have the connection with the past. Without them and what they did we’re nothing.”
On the worst injury he has ever had in wrestling:
“The worst injury I’ve ever had was a fractured skull. I thought I broke my neck at the time. I was giving a guy a neckbreaker and his head wound up on top of mine and everything just sandwiched and hit the mat at the same time and my head was turned. It felt like somebody took a pot of warm water and poured it inside my brain. Everything got hot so I thought I broke my neck. I still had feelings so like a knucklehead I continued to wrestle for 12 more minutes. Afterwards it was a chore to walk from the ring to the back and as soon as I got in the back I hit the floor and couldn’t get up. I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t see and was throwing up.”
On the reaction he got from doctors over the injury:
“No they didn’t say anything like that they told me that they were shocked because I walked into the hospital. They were like ‘how did you get in here?’ I said ‘I walked’ so they said ‘the bad news is you have a fractured skull. The good news is you should have died.’ I was out two months.”
On injuring any wrestlers with his Go To Sleep finisher:
“I’ve broken a nose or two that’s about it. It happens, you finish the match.”
To check out the full interview, click here.