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What’s the story?
Well, it's the never-ending story - will CM Punk ever return to the squared circle?
The man himself finally answered the question on ESPN's The MMA Show, as well as confirming why he didn't appear at ALL IN in his hometown of Chicago.
In case you didn’t know…
CM Punk retired from professional wrestling in 2014 but remains one of the most loved wrestlers of all time, and chants of his name still echo around most WWE events at some point.
While everything in wrestling tends to be a case of never say never, and almost everyone comes back eventually, it's always been thought that hell may freeze over before CM Punk returns to WWE after he alleged medical negligence on their part and after seemingly falling out of love with the business.
Punk has since turned his attention to MMA, but has lost on both occasions he's entered the Octagon.
The heart of the matter
While CM Punk's MMA career didn't get off to a glittering start, the former professional wrestler has confirmed on ESPN's The MMA Show that he has no interest in returning to the squared circle.
To me that's like an escape hatch. I've got season three of Beastmaster on Netflix, and we're keeping our fingers crossed that we get to move forward and do a season four. Aside from all the stuff that I can talk to you about, there's all this secret stuff that I'm not allowed to talk about that I am doing too.
Punk, though, stated that it's not just his schedule stopping the former WWE Champion from returning to the ring - he's simply not interested.
It's not even a matter of not going to wrestling because I'm busy doing other stuff, there's just nothing that interests me in wrestling.
After his appearance in Chicago the day before ALL IN, one hot rumour was that Punk may have made his return to the 10-000 capacity event in his hometown.
The former WWE star confirmed that he couldn't have been at the show even if he wanted to, due to shooting for a movie that day - but, contrary to previous comments from Cody Rhodes, claimed that he was never made an offer to appear anyway.
I was never made an offer to be there," Punk said. "They said, 'hey, if you want to come, you should come.' I was like, 'eh, oh, OK.' It was extremely vague... it wasn't an offer.
What’s next?
Well, I guess we just have to wait and see. Will CM Punk ever return to the ring? It looks unlikely - but stranger things have happened.
Luckily for CM Punk fans, it looks like there'll be a lot more of the former WWE Champion on the big screen and the small screen in the near future.
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