CM Punk is the WWE Champion again, and he did it the same way he left everyone fifteen years ago: in Chicago, with a kiss goodbye.
On the July 6 episode of Raw, Punk stepped in as a surprise replacement challenger and beat Sami Zayn to capture the Undisputed WWE Championship in front of his hometown crowd at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. It’s Punk’s first reign with this specific title since 2011, and it came with an ending built entirely for the people who never stopped chanting his name.
How It Happened
Zayn was originally scheduled to defend the title against Cody Rhodes in a rematch. Early in the show, Gunther attacked Rhodes backstage and left him unable to compete. Raw General Manager Adam Pearce still needed a challenger, and SmackDown official Nick Aldis delivered one: CM Punk.
The match itself was tight, and it turned on a single moment. Zayn went for his Helluva Kick and missed. Punk answered with a Helluva Kick of his own, followed it up with the Go To Sleep, and got the three-count. The Allstate Arena, already loud all night for its favorite son, lost it completely.
Fans Are Still Upset About How Short Zayn’s Reign Was
The win closes the book on one of the more emotional championship runs WWE has told in years, and that’s part of why the reaction has been so loud. Zayn won the title just nine days earlier at Night of Champions in Riyadh, becoming the first Muslim WWE Champion in company history (you can read The Stunner’s full breakdown of that night right here). Given how much that moment meant, plenty of fans felt a nine-day reign undercut it, and the backlash was immediate and pointed, with plenty of fans arguing Zayn deserved a real run with the belt rather than a quick transition to Punk.
Zayn addressed the criticism himself rather than letting it sit. “If you just don’t like me, that’s fine,” he said. “You’re certainly allowed to not like me. But I think if you start getting married to an archetype of what you’ve been taught, this is what you should want, and then that’s all you buy.” He also revealed that John Cena texted him after the Riyadh win, reminding him “of the difficulty of attaining this and that less than 1% of the people that aspire to do what we do ever gets to this point.” Zayn called it “one of the more touching texts that I got.”
The Second Time He’s Won a World Title in That Building
Here’s the detail that makes Monday night land differently than a normal title change: the Allstate Arena is the same building where CM Punk won his first WWE Championship, at Money in the Bank in July 2011, beating John Cena in the match that basically launched the modern version of his career. That night, Punk walked out through the crowd with the belt and blew a kiss on his way out the door.
On Monday, with a new championship in hand in the same arena, Punk did it again on purpose. He sat on the barricade, blew a kiss to the crowd, and left through the fans just like he did fifteen years earlier, this time staying to celebrate with the people chanting his name instead of disappearing into the night. It’s his eighth world title overall, but specifically his first run with the WWE Championship since that 434-day reign ended at the 2013 Royal Rumble. Chicago got the sequel it’s been waiting a long time for.