CM Punk is not a hypocrite for winning the WWE championship like this

If you’ve spent much time on social media in the days following CM Punk’s return in Chicago and subsequent WWE championship victory over Sami Zayn in the main event of Monday Night Raw this week you’ve undoubtedly seen a lot of criticism. They’re calling this man Hulk Hogan for how he ended up looking in this situation. An even more popular term you’ll see often, though, is hypocrite. There’s a lot of stuff like this out there: 2 minutes of CM Punk being a hypocrite pic.twitter.com/EsksKejBwE — FXNwrasslin (@FXNbackup) July 7, 2026 I don’t know that I’m buying it, though. Punk was raging against the machine all those years ago not necessarily because part timers were coming in and taking his spot but because he was being treated as though he wasn’t at their level. The Rock and Brock Lesnar could come in and beat him and leave because they were the tippy top of the mountain, and you get that kind of treatment when you reach that status. He is every bit as good as those two, and desi