CM Punk: WrestleMania’s Jordan vs Kobe Matchup + Pat McAfee BEEF
All The Smoke
The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 7.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CM Punk pulls up to ALL THE SMOKE Unplugged ahead of WrestleMania 42 and gets real about Roman Reigns, Pipe Bomb 2.0, Pat McAfee, Chicago, WWE politics, his 10-year hiatus, AJ Lee, Money in the Bank 2011, John Cena, writing for Marvel, and what’s still left to accomplish in his legendary career.
The WWE World Heavyweight Champion also opens up on main-eventing WrestleMania back-to-back years, why the business feels different now, the pressure of carrying the company, and how he still approaches the game at 47.
Tap in for one of CM Punk’s most honest long-form interviews yet.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.0 | Welcome back to Unplugged. |
| 0:05.6 | We have a very special guest today. |
| 0:08.9 | As you guys know, we've been expanding in this space, |
| 0:11.6 | and we're going to start doing more stuff with the WWE. |
| 0:15.0 | But today we have the WWE World Heavyweight champ, CM Punk. |
| 0:20.4 | Appreciate you, man. Wow. Thank you for making time. world heavyweight champ CM Punk appreciate you man |
| 0:21.1 | Wow |
| 0:22.6 | Thank you for making time how's life? What's going on man? Oh gosh. Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah |
| 0:28.8 | Life is good. I woke up this morning. Yeah, everything else is |
| 0:33.0 | You woke up in LA though I did uh-huh, yeah you can't beat the weather |
| 0:36.6 | No, it's nice. |
| 0:58.0 | It's actually supposed to start raining this weekend, but you beat it. But rain in L.A. is a different animal than rain anywhere else. I'll see people run for cover. It's raining. And I'm like, uh, no, that's not rain. I'm a Midwest guy. WrestleMania is upon us back in Vegas. WrestleMania 42, Las Vegas, April 18th and 19th, headline by you and Roman Raines. |
| 1:03.0 | This is your back to the headline, WrestleMania back to back years. |
| 1:07.0 | Yeah. |
| 1:08.0 | What does that mean to you? |
| 1:09.0 | It's special to me. |
| 1:10.0 | I was a kid who always just wanted to be a wrestler and the pinnacle of what I dreamt about doing since I was a little kid was the main event of WrestleMania. You know, and I think maybe back in the day I put too much pressure on myself to get there. |
| 1:28.3 | You know, it's not the same as the NBA, you know, where, you know, the best team a lot of the times will make it through the playoffs and get to that finals. |
| 1:43.3 | You know, there's so much more that goes into our business, you know, like who likes you, |
| 1:47.1 | who doesn't like you, there's politics, there's this and that. |
... |
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