Cm Punk - Phil Brooks

Phil Brooks[4] (born October 26, 1978), better known by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) on its Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) brand where he is the reigning ECW Champion.

Punk initially came to prominence through his career on the professional wrestling independent circuit, primarily as a member of the Ring of Honor (ROH) roster where he was an ROH Tag Team Champion, ROH World Champion, and the first head trainer of the ROH wrestling school. Along with Samoa Joe and Homicide, he was considered to be one of the three icons of ROH.[5] Punk later accepted a contract from WWE and spent a year in their developmental promotion Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) during which time he won every championship in the promotion. When the ECW brand was revived in 2006 Punk was brought into the brand's roster where he had several successes including being undefeated in singles competition for the six months after his debut and ultimately winning the ECW Championship in September 2007.

Throughout his career, Punk has consistently used the gimmick of being straight edge, a lifestyle he follows in real life.[6] Depending on alignment as a face or heel, different aspects of the culture are emphasized to encourage the desired audience reaction.[6]

Contents [hide]

1 Career

1.1 Early career

1.2 Ring of Honor and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

1.3 World Wrestling Entertainment

1.3.1 Ohio Valley Wrestling

1.3.2 ECW

2 In wrestling

3 Championships and accomplishments

4 Gimmick

5 Personal life

6 Non-wrestling television appearances

7 References

8 External links

[edit] Career

[edit] Early career

Punk's first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his friends 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.[6][7][8] Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun.[6] After leaving the federation, he enrolled as a student at the "Steel Domain" wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel,[3] Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler. As part of the training, he wrestled at St. Paul's Steel Domain Wrestling.[6][9] It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton,[10][11] who soon adopted the stage name Colt Cabana. Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent promotions, as opponents or allies.[10] In the independents Punk, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chuckie Smoothe, Adam Pearce and manager Dave Prazak, formed a stable named the Gold Bond Mafia.[6] The Gold Bond Mafia (CM Punk, Colt Cabana and Chris Hero) wrestled The Black T-Shirt Squad (Mike Quackenbush, Reckless Youth and Don Montoya) in the main event of CHIKARA's debut show. The BTS won after Reckless pinned Cabana following a Northern Light's Bomb 2k4.

Punk's home promotion for his early career is usually considered to be Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South).[6] 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. Notably his feud with Hero included a 55-minute TLC match,[6] a 93-minute two out of three falls match[9] and several 60-minute draws.[11] Punk's matches with Cabana led him to being hired by the Ring of Honor promotion.[9] During his time in IWA:Mid-South he would also meet, wrestle against and become a friend of Eddie Guerrero.[6][9] From February 2003 until May 2004 Punk refused to wrestle for IWA:Mid-South. Punk claims that this was in protest to Ian Rotten's treatment of Chris Hero;[6] however Hero himself 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.[12] 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. His last appearance in IWA:Mid-South was on July 2, 2005 in which he competed in a sixty-minute time limit draw against Delirious.

[edit] Ring of Honor and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling

Punk joined Ring of Honor initially as a babyface, but was quickly turned heel in a feud with Raven that featured numerous variants of no disqualification matches. At the same time Punk joined the wrestling promotion NWA Total Nonstop Action (TNA), where he was paired with Julio Dinero as, ironically, members of Raven's TNA stable The Gathering.

Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH with notable achievements including coming 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 Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana as the Second City Saints, both times defeating the Briscoe Brothers to win the championship. Circa October 2003 Punk was hired as the first head trainer of the Ring of Honor wrestling school,[6][13] having previously been a trainer for the Steel Domain[6] and Primetime Wrestling.[14]

CM Punk in a match against Danny Dominion at an NWA Midwest event.Meanwhile in TNA on February 25, 2004 Punk had a physical scuffle with Teddy Hart that was broken up by Sabu outside of a restaurant shortly before a TNA show stemming from an ROH show in which Hart performed three unplanned spots putting several other wrestlers in danger of injury.[15][16] Around the same time as the scuffle Punk and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA shows leading to speculation he was fired for the incident.[17] However, Punk has stated that the scuffle had no bearing on his TNA career and that the reason he and Dinero