During a recent interview with Sport1, AEW star CM Punk talked about his run as the WWE Champion for 434 days and his Pipebomb promo. 

On his run as the WWE Champion for 434 days:

“It’s not true that I don’t cherish my time as WWE Champion, I have fond memories of it.

Yes, I criticized the fact that I wasn’t in many main events at the time even though I was champion. It wasn’t that I was personally offended, I just thought it was a stupid decision from a business point of view. But it’s not something that I will lose sleep over.”

On his Pipebomb promo and giving Vince McMahon a fake version:

“Everything was real. I had to write a draft for Vince and I didn’t say anything about what was in that draft. I knew what I was going to say and I knew that I wasn’t going beyond certain limits.

But what was also clear to me is live TV is a business in which it is easier to get forgiveness afterwards than a permit beforehand. I couldn’t have told Vince that I would mention Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman, who were undesirable people at WWE at the time.

Vince would also have said, ‘Don’t mention New Japan – and what the hell is ‘Ring of Honor’? But I wanted to create some kind of work of art that I had say in, that’s why I did it.

So I gave him a wrong draft and had it approved, said ‘Yes, okay’ when he was still suggesting that I should make fun of his daughter Stephanie, and then I did something else.

But because what I did was good, he wasn’t mad.”

CM Punk's Infamous Pipebomb | June 27, 2011 Raw.