CM Punk

In wrestling, he is best known for his time in WWE, where his 434-day reign as WWE Champion stands as the sixth-longest in the championship’s history. Brooks began his professional wrestling career in 1999 on the independent circuit, mainly with Ring of Honor (ROH), winning the ROH World Championship once.

He signed with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2005, and won the WWE Championship twice, the World Heavyweight Championship three times, and the Intercontinental Championship and the ECW World Heavyweight Championship once each. Brooks also won the World Tag Team Championship, becoming WWE’s 19th Triple Crown Champion; the fastest wrestler to achieve this feat, in 203 days.

He is also the only back-to-back Money in the Bank winner, has headlined several WWE pay-per-view events, won Superstar of the Year at the 2011 Slammy Awards, and was voted Wrestler of the Year in 2011 and 2012 by readers of Pro Wrestling Illustrated. After becoming disillusioned with WWE, Brooks acrimoniously departed the company and retired from professional wrestling in 2014. After much speculation, he joined AEW in 2021.

Brooks has used the CM Punk moniker for his entire professional wrestling career, and his character has been consistently portrayed as outspoken, confrontational, sharp-tongued, anti-establishment, straight edge, and iconoclastic, most of which are inspired by his real-life views and personality. Depending on his alignment as a hero or villain, Brooks has emphasized different aspects of the straight edge lifestyle to garner the desired audience reaction.

After retiring from professional wrestling, Brooks pursued a career as a mixed martial artist, and he signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). A welterweight, he had his first professional fight at UFC 203 in 2016, losing via submission to Mickey Gall. He then lost his second fight to Mike Jackson via unanimous decision at UFC 225 in 2018 (later overturned to a no contest), and was subsequently released. Brooks then began appearing as a commentator with Cage Fury Fighting Championships (CFFC), and as an analyst on the Fox Sports 1 program WWE Backstage.

Brooks had his first lead acting role in the animated film The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age SmackDown! (2015), and has since starred in the horror films Girl on the Third Floor (2019) and Rabid (2019) and the wrestling drama series Heels (2021–present). In 2021, Punk signed with All Elite Wrestling and has since become the AEW World Champion twice.

Notable Matches

vs. John Cena at Money in the Bank 2011

vs. Brock Lesnar at Summerslam 2013

vs. John Cena on Raw 25th February 2013

vs. Samoa Joe on ROH Joe vs Punk II

vs. The Undertaker at Wrestlemania 29

vs. Chris Jericho at Extreme Rules 2012

vs. Jeff Hardy at Summerslam 2009

vs. Daniel Bryan at Over the Limit 2012

Notable Feuds

vs. Colt Cabana

vs. Chris Hero

vs. Raven

vs. John Morrison

vs. Rey Mysterio

vs. Jeff Hardy

vs. The Undertaker

vs. Randy Orton

vs. John Cena

vs. Chris Jericho

Other Notable Achievements

WWE Intercontinental Championship

World Tag Team Championship – with Kofi Kingston

ROH Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Colt Cabana

OVW Heavyweight Championship

OVW Southern Tag Team Championship – with Seth Skyfire

OVW Television Championship

Second OVW Triple Crown Champion

IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship (5 times)

]IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship (2 times)

NWA Cyberspace Tag Team Championship – with Julio Dinero

IWC World Heavyweight Championship

MAW Heavyweight Championship

NWA Revolution Heavyweight Championship

SDW Northern States Television Championship (2 times)

SPCW Northern States Light Heavyweight Championship