The return of former WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk is still considered to be one of the craziest returns of 2023. Recently, Kevin Nash shared his thoughts on Punk’s return. More specifically, he spoke about the Second City Saint’s merchandise sales.
While speaking on the recent episode of the Kliq This podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer discussed his thoughts on Punk’s return. Kevin Nash also mentioned that Punk made over half a million dollars in merchandise sales in less than 24 hours.
“So, I watched Raw. And I don’t care what anybody says. The number one… These are some things that have been brought to my attention. [CM] Punk is selling f*cking merchandise like Tony Montana f*cking moved cocaine. I think he did $600,000 worth of merchandise like the first 24 hours that he came back,” Nash explained.
“So… And I think I find myself… I watched SmackDown last Friday because I knew he was going to be on. And that was the reason I watched,” he added. “Because I wanted see if [it’s working]. But I wasn’t Gang Busters over his initial interview that he cut. I was like [Squeamish].”
Kevin Nash on CM Punk’s promo segments on Raw, SmackDown, and NXT
While speaking on the same podcast, Nash revealed that he understands the amount of pressure CM Punk would have had before his first promo segment in WWE after a decade.
But at the time man, I was just like everybody else… I always look at it from the standpoint of f*cking standing back there in Guerilla, at that curtain and that f*cking your song hits, you’re CM Punk, you haven’t said a f*cking a word on that f*cking stage in 10 f*cking years. And you’re going to walk out there, you’re going to cut a promo. That’s I mean… F*ck! I don’t care who you are… That’s a lot of… That’s a lot of pressure that he’s going out there. So he had the Friday thing. Then Monday he came back out and…”
The WWE Hall of Famer also praised Triple H for letting CM Punk to show up on NXT. He believed that it helped in NXT’s viewership.
I thought it was a really good job that they did… That Paul [Levesque] did in him showing up at Raw, showing up at SmackDown, and then basically saying he was going to NXT to see Shawn Michaels. Then he would come back to Raw the following Monday and make his decision of who he’s going to sign with. So by doing that alone it brought the NXT brand up. Because he was going to listen what Shawn had as an offer. And I thought that was brilliant,” Kevin Nash said.
