(Punk said he was prescribed Z-Pak to the point that he shit himself on television.) That, perhaps most galling, he was treated dismissively by WWE’s in-house doctor (who goes unnamed throughout the podcast) when Punk had a staph infection that later became a potentially lethal case of MRSA.He also described a match that included a misplaced slam through a table, wherein Ryback “fucking misses the table, dumps me on the concrete fucking ground, tilts me on my pelvis, fucks me up for weeks.” During his matches with Ryback, his ribs were broken by a kick, according to Punk. That he was subjected to working with Ryback, a novice and determinedly unsafe opponent who comes out of this interview looking worse than anybody but the WWE doctor.His expected recovery time was four to six weeks. That he was called back into action just weeks after surgeries. After one elbow surgery, he received a call from McMahon on Punk’s way home, when he was still anesthetized, and was told it had been announced that Punk would be in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match on Raw in two and a half weeks.That he frequently worked through injury, like when he “tore up” his knee against John Cena at Night of Champions 2012 when his elbow “locked up at like a 45-degree angle” and he did physical therapy to keep wrestling every night when some newbie wrestlers gouged his eyes immediately after laser eye surgery or when he strained his ACL, tore his MCL, meniscus, and PCL, and bruised his patella in the WrestleMania match against the Undertaker, which led to the quote atop this piece. The real issue was his health, and by inference the health of every WWE “superstar.” Punk’s litany of charges are ghastly and borderline unconscionable, even if, as WWE chairman Vince McMahon noted Monday night on Steve Austin’s podcast, “there are two sides to every story.” Punk’s account boils down to the following eyebrow-raising claims: My stock is dropping rapidly in the eyes of the casual viewer, who is who they care about.”) Hell, even set aside his lousy relationship with Triple H, with whom he claims there were “never any good vibes.” Set aside his distaste with WWE’s regular demands for him to lose to part-time talent (“I’ve gotta put over the Rock and he goes away I’ve gotta put over Taker and he goes away and now I’m putting over Brock and he goes away. Set aside putting up with Internet fans who call him a “quieter” (sic) and feel entitled to answers about why he left. Set aside his gripes about missed promotional opportunities: He couldn’t put sponsors on his tights he couldn’t escort his buddy Chael Sonnen to the octagon at a UFC show he lost the lead in 12 Rounds 2. Whether or not that was the case, Punk’s health was this interview’s real pipebomb - if you’ll forgive me for using a term Punk now claims to despise. “Actually,” he immediately corrects himself, “the big thing that led to my decision was my health.” There’s an element of truth in all of those things, but I can’t say there was one big thing that led to my decision.” 1 “There’s a lot of assumption out there from people: I was disgruntled with my story lines, I was banged up, I was mad that I wasn’t the main event of WrestleMania, I was mad that I was wrestling Triple H. Punk tells a lively story of distrust and exploitation that should call into question any fan’s devotion to WWE in the same way that the Dave Duerson or Jonathan Martin or Ray Rice stories rocked fans’ fidelity to the NFL. Over the course of the podcast, Punk lists a series of issues - medical negligence, pay disputes, creative differences - that led to him leaving the company. Little wonder Punk thinks he’s making more of a difference at home on his couch than he ever could have made inside WWE. That’s more than the number of people who subscribe to WWE Network. It’s kind of a big deal. The YouTube video of the podcast already has more than 950,000 views. Last week, on Thanksgiving, Punk appeared on his friend Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling podcast to finally tell his side of the story. Since then, rumors have swirled about the reasons for his walkout. Even then, it was only brought up to defuse the inevitable pro-Punk chants. It was the biggest pro wrestling story line of the year, and it wasn’t even mentioned onscreen until two months after his departure, when WWE was in Punk’s hometown of Chicago.
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