CM Punk addresses crowd in first ‘Raw’ appearance in nearly 10 years

CM Punk is home.

Those are the words the returning and polarizing star said in his first message back in WWE, taking the mic at the end of Raw and giving the message of what he plans to do in his return to the company.

‘Looks like hell froze over,’ Punk’s first words were.

‘I didn’t know how I was gonna react and I didn’t know how it was gonna go but this made me feel like my old self, because this is where I belong,’ he said. ‘In over 10 years, you people never forgot me even when maybe I wanted to forget me. That’s powerful. You are all powerful.’

Monday was Punk’s first appearance on Raw since January 2014, with his last match coming against Billy Gunn. Punk said since coming back he’s been welcome by ‘almost everybody’ in the company, a sly reference to the viral footage of Seth Rollins’ frustration on Saturday and the annoyance on Monday.

Punk said people are afraid of what ‘the most dangerous and controversial, feared man’ in the industry could do back in WWE, but made his goals for his comeback clear.

‘The best in the world is back and the best in the world is standing in the middle of the ring,’ Punk said. ‘I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make money.’

Punk made his grand return to WWE on Saturday following the conclusion of the men’s WarGames match at Survivor Series. After Cody Rhodes and his team secured the win over The Judgment Day and celebrated in the ring, ‘Cult of Personality’ blared through the Allstate Arena speakers and the crowd went into a frenzy seeing their hometown star return.

The return also came nearly three months after Punk fired by All Elite Wrestling with cause after Punk was involved in a backstage altercation following the “All In” pay-per-view in London. Since then, there was major speculation about Punk coming back to WWE. He was rumored to be the fifth member of Rhodes’ team in the WarGames match before the returning Randy Orton was announced as the final member of the group.

Several outlets reported Punk wasn’t going to be at Survivor Series nor sign with WWE in the immediate future, but the major surprise came after WWE chief content officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque said ‘it didn’t come to fruition until everyone thought it wasn’t going to happen,’ adding it was ‘one of those lightning-in-a-bottle moments.’