Punk teases return to the ring after again screwing over McIntyre

One night after Drew McIntyre chose hate at WrestleMania XL and lost the WWE World Heavyweight championship he’d just won as a result, he narrowly missed out an opportunity to reclaim the title on the Raw After WrestleMania.

The common denominator in both was CM Punk.

Punk has been out injured since Royal Rumble, but the feud between he & McIntyre has only intensified with the recently returned Chicagoan on the sidelines. Drew’s relished Punk’s misery while continuing to bring up behind-the-scenes issues between them from their prior WWE runs. Punk’s fired back by mocking the big Scot for using his name to remain relevant... and, in the last 36 hours or so, by helping to screw McIntyre out of the WHC not once, but twice.

He was celebrating his role in helping Jey Uso become the #1 contender for what’s now Damian Priest’s title when he told the crowd in Philadelphia that the next time he’s in the City of Brotherly Love, he’ll be wrestling again.

WWE released a cleaner version of this video you can watch in our highlights post here, but they cut off the end when Punk says, “I promise you this Philadelphia, the next time I’m back here — I’m gonna have my boots on.”

WWE doesn’t currently have their return to the City of Brotherly Love booked as of yet. After taking over the town for the last week, they’ll probably give the Philly faithful some time to start missing them. We doubt they’ll take too long before visiting one of the country’s biggest markets again, though.

And this is just the latest sign that Punk’s recovery from surgery to repair a triceps tear might not be as long as the 6-8 months he initially announced. He’s said this rehab’s gone much better than when he was coming back from a similar injury in AEW, and that WWE medical was protecting him from himself by not letting get back in the ring at WrestleMania when he felt good enough to try.

Would they be adding this much physicality to his program with McIntyre if a match was another 3-5 months away?

Let us know what you think, Cagesiders.