Phillip Jack Brooks, born on October 26, 1978, and widely recognized by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler, actor, and color commentator.
During the peak of his career, Punk was considered by many as the best professional wrestler in the world. Brooks used the CM Punk moniker his entire career in every organization he worked. Punk consistently portrayed the character of an outspoken, sharp-tongued, anti-establishment, straight edge iconoclast.
Most of the straight edge principles he portrayed, such as not drinking alcohol or not taking recreational drugs, are his real life views.
He is currently signed to WWE, where he works on their Raw brand and is the current World Heavyweight Champion is his second reign.
CM Punk is the embodiment of the anti-establishment - a rebellious, straight-edge icon with a knack for dropping pipe bombs that leave WWE buzzing. Inspired by the legendary "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Punk’s no-nonsense attitude and outspoken nature have made him a fan favorite and a force to be reckoned with.
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Early Life and Career Beginnings
Punk's first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his friends and brother Mike Brooks in the mid-late 1990s. He first started using the ring name CM Punk when he was put into a tag team named the Chick Magnets with CM Venom after another performer skipped out on the card.
Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun.
When the promotion started taking off, doing spot shows out of a warehouse in Mokena, Illinois, Punk found out that his brother Mike had embezzled thousands of dollars from the small company, causing them to become estranged.
He soon left the federation and enrolled as a student at the "Steel Dominion" wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel, Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler.
As part of the training, he wrestled at Steel Domain Wrestling in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton, who soon adopted the stage name Colt Cabana.
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Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent circuit promotions, as opponents or allies.
Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South)
Punk's home promotion for his early career is usually considered to be Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South).
During Punk's time in IWA:Mid-South, he had high profile feuds with Colt Cabana and Chris Hero while also rising to the top of the roster winning the IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship twice and the IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship on five separate occasions, beating stars like A.J. Styles, Cabana and even Eddie Guerrero for that Championship.
Punk's matches with Cabana led him to being hired by the Ring of Honor promotion.
From February 2003 until May 2004, Punk refused to wrestle for IWA:Mid-South, because he claims that this was in protest to Ian Rotten's mistreatment of Chris Hero in the company.
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Hero, however, has stated he believes there were other reasons, and Rotten's treatment of him was just an excuse by Punk to stop working for the company.
Eventually Punk returned to IWA:Mid-South and continued to perform as a wrestler and commentator for them until 2005 when he was signed to World Wrestling Entertainment.
Ring of Honor (ROH)
Initially, Punk joined Ring of Honor (ROH) as a face, but quickly became a heel in a feud with Raven that featured numerous variants of no disqualification matches.
Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH, including coming in second at the Second Anniversary Show during the tournament to crown the first ROH Pure Champion, losing to A.J. Styles in the finals and winning the ROH World Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana as the Second City Saints.
Both times Punk and Cabana defeated the Briscoe Brothers to win the championship.
Shortly before a TNA show on February 25, 2004, Punk had a physical scuffle with Teddy Hart outside of a restaurant that was broken up by Sabu.
The scuffle reportedly stemmed from an ROH show in which Hart performed three unplanned spots putting several other wrestlers in danger of injury.
Around the time of the scuffle, Punk and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA shows, leading to speculation he was fired for the incident.
Punk, however, has stated that the scuffle had no bearing on his TNA career. He said the reason he and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA pay-per-views was that TNA officials believed that he and Dinero had not connected with the fans as heels, having recently turned against the popular Raven and instead formed a heel tag team managed by James Mitchell.
The officials decided that as the teams as heels was not working decided to put the storyline on hold indefinitely, and thus had no work for Punk or Dinero.
In ROH, Punk faced off against ROH World Champion Samoa Joe for the championship in a three match series.
The first match, on June 12, 2004 at World Title Classic in Dayton, Ohio, resulted in a 60-minute time limit draw when neither Punk nor Joe could pin or cause the other to submit in the 60 minutes.
The second match between Punk and Joe was planned for December 4, 2004; however, due to Steve Corino being pulled from a match with Joe by Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE, the second match was hastily rescheduled on October 11, 2004 for [[October 16]] in Punk's hometown of Chicago.
At Joe vs. Punk II on October 16, they wrestled to a second 60-minute draw.
In addition to Joe vs. Punk II becoming Ring of Honor's best-selling DVD at the time, the match received a five-star rating by Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
In June 2005, Punk accepted a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), after a try-out match against Val Venis on its Sunday Night Heat show.
Even though he had accepted the deal, Punk went on to defeat Austin Aries with his Pepsi Plunge move, winning the ROH World Championship on June 18, 2005 at Death Before Dishonor III.
Immediately after the match, Punk proceeded to become a villain and started a storyline where he threatened to bring the ROH World Championship to WWE with him.
For weeks, Punk teased the ROH locker room and the ROH fans as well as mocking the championship he possessed, going so far as to sign his WWE contract on it.
During the storyline, Mick Foley made several ROH appearances, attempting to convince Punk to do the right thing and defend the title on his way out.
On August 12, 2005 in Dayton, Ohio, Punk lost the ROH World Championship to James Gibson in a four corner elimination match consisting of himself, Gibson, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, who re-debuted after a year-and-half absence.
Punk's final scheduled match in Ring of Honor took place at Punk: The Final Chapter on August 13, 2005 against long-time friend Colt Cabana in a two out of three falls match, which he lost.
Punk made a special appearance at the ROH show Unscripted II on February 11, 2006, when the original card had to be scrapped due to Low Ki leaving ROH the week prior.
In addition, most of the ROH roster contracted to TNA were pulled from the show because of a snowstorm that TNA officials thought might prevent performers from reaching a pay-per-view scheduled the next day.
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)
In September 2005, Punk was assigned to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), a WWE developmental territory.
He made his debut on September 8, 2005, in a dark match, where he, Nigel McGuinness and Paul Burchill were defeated by Deuce Shade, Elijah Burke and Seth Skyfire.
On September 26, 2005 in his OVW television debut, Punk suffered a ruptured eardrum and broken nose after Danny Inferno hit him with an overly stiff right hand.
On November 9, 2005, Punk became the OVW Television Champion after defeating Ken Doane, which immediately led to a feud between Punk and Brent Albright, who had previously been feuding with Doane for the Television Championship and had lost his chance to wrestle Doane after Punk hit him with a chair so he himself could wrestle Doane.
They wrestled in series of matches, including one that ended in overtime with Albright having Punk submit to Albright's finisher, the Crowbar, but Punk was able to keep the championship, as he had not agreed to the extra time.
On January 4, 2006, Punk lost the OVW Television Championship during a three way dance among himself, Albright and Doane.
After Matt Cappotelli vacated the OVW Heavyweight Championship because of a brain tumor in February 2006, a tournament was held to crown a new champion.
The finals were Brent Albright vs CM Punk with Albright defeating Punk to become the new champion.
On May 3, 2006, Punk finally defeated Albright in a strap match to win the OVW Heavyweight Championship.
On July 28, 2006, Punk and Seth Skyfire defeated Shad Gaspard and the Neighborhoodie to win the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship at a house show.
On August 30, 2006, a match was scheduled to take place between Punk and Skyfire for the OVW Heavyweight Championship.
Prior to the match, however, Skyfire was attacked by Charles "The Hammer" Evans, with whom Skyfire had also been feuding, and was replaced in the match by Chet Jablonski (Chet the Jet) who pinned Punk to win the OVW Heavyweight Championship.