During the opening segment of Monday Night Raw tonight, Stephanie McMahon shut down CM Punk chants with a brutal comeback referencing the former WWE star’s UFC career.
Raw took place live in Chicago this week, and “CM Punk!” chants broke out the instant McMahon entered the ring to kick off the show. Her response was swift, and it both riled up the crowd and set social media aflame.
“So if you guys could keep that up for about two minutes and 15 seconds, you’d last one second longer than Punk did,” McMahon said.
This is a reference to CM Punk’s first match with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where he faced off against Mickey Gall. McMahon was ready to go with the exact length of that match; Punk lost to Gall after two minutes and 14 seconds.
“CM Punk!” chants have regularly popped up during WWE shows since 2014, the year that Punk left World Wrestling Entertainment on bad terms and vowed to never work for Vince McMahon again. The chant is used mainly as a form of rebellion against the McMahons, and it can usually be heard during particularly boring or baffling segments. Never is CM Punk actually being discussed, and only very rarely have the performers in the ring responded to the chants like McMahon did tonight.
On December 26th’s show, it wasn’t too surprising to hear a Punk chant, as Chicago is the former WWE superstar’s hometown.
If McMahon’s line was meant to shut down the audience, it didn’t work, as another “CM Punk!” chant broke out shortly after. While they were in the mood to hate the McMahons, the Chicago crowd met Roman Reigns with almost universal boos a few minutes later.
Of course, McMahon plays a heel character on the show, and so it makes sense for her to go to Chicago and mock the city’s favorite WWE superstar. And this was not even the first time that she has lashed out at CM Punk after his name was chanted. During one segment in which McMahon was speaking to Daniel Bryan and “CM Punk!” chants broke out, McMahon responded by telling Bryan that the fans “want you to quit just like CM Punk did.”