In a candid conversation with The Metro, WWE star CM Punk opened up about the potential path his life might have taken had he not pursued professional wrestling — and the picture he painted was a sobering one.
“I’d be dead or in jail right now, 100%,” Punk admitted bluntly. “And I’ve narrowly avoided jail multiple times.”
Punk, known for his raw honesty both in and out of the ring, acknowledged that he never had a clear backup plan outside of wrestling. “I really don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard for me to say, ‘I was interested in this’ and ‘I was interested in that,’ or ‘maybe I would have done this.’”
He also shared his thoughts on the current culture surrounding fame and success, expressing concern over the goals many young people seem to have today. “You ask kids nowadays, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And unfortunately, I think a lot of people say, ‘I want to be famous.’ That sucks. Fame sucks.”
For Punk, fame was never the goal — it was an unintended consequence of following his true passion. “Fame is a side effect of being successful at what I do,” he explained. “I wanted to be a wrestler. I never said I wanted to be a millionaire. I never said I wanted to be a WWE superstar. I wanted to be a wrestler. I got a pair of boots and I started wrestling.”
Punk’s journey from independent wrestling standout to global superstar is well documented, but his latest remarks offer a deeply personal reminder of just how much the industry has meant to his life — and how easily things could have turned out differently.
