The Real-Life Heat Between CM Punk & Kevin Owens

WWE

Ahead of their upcoming Undisputed WWE Championship match on SmackDown, here is the real-life heat between CM Punk and Kevin Owens.

At SummerSlam 2026, Kevin Owens made his return to WWE television for the first time in over a year, with him undergoing neck surgery prior to WrestleMania 41 last year.

Owens won a number one contender’s match over Sami Zayn, Gunther and Finn Balor to earn the next shot at the Undisputed WWE Championship, with him set to challenge CM Punk for the title on SmackDown in Toronto on August 21.

The highly anticipated feud between Kevin Owens and CM Punk is now underway, with Wade Barrett noting on commentary at the start of the segment that Punk and Owens had ‘history that we were told not to mention’.

With the two set for their first singles match against each other, here is the real-life heat between CM Punk and Kevin Owens.

Kevin Owens Wrestling In A T-Shirt Led To Issues With CM Punk

During his early career in Ring of Honor, Kevin Owens, then wrestling as Kevin Steen, was a rookie on the undercard of the promotion, while CM Punk was an established main eventer.

Steen had begun wrestling in a singlet during his early ROH days at the request of Gabe Sapolsky upon joining the promotion, as Sapolsky said he ‘didn’t want people wrestling in shirts’ on his show.

Owens would continue to wear the singlet before eventually asking Sapolsky if he could wrestle in the shirt, due to feeling it fit his aesthetic more, with Sapolsky eventually agreeing to let Steen wrestle in the shirt.

Later in that night prior to the show, Steen was preparing for his match, when CM Punk would take a jab at him wrestling in a shirt over the PA System in the arena, which led to Steen opting to wrestle in the singlet that night instead of the t-shirt.

After the match, Steen made his way backstage, where Punk was stood waiting for him. Steen would ask Punk if he was ‘happy now’, which Steen has said was intended as a joke, though Punk clearly didn’t take it that way, calling out Steen for being disrespectful in front of the entire locker room.

Steen and Punk had been on good terms, with Steen admitting that he initially apologised and thought things were ‘no big deal’.

Kevin Owens Opens Up During Shoot Interview

Kevin Owens spoke about the situation in 2014 in a shoot interview, with him detailing the story, saying:

“People know me for wrestling in a shirt. I still wrestled in a shirt back then and I still do to this day, but I had a singlet. And Gabe (Sapolsky), before I started in Ring of Honor, told me can you just wrestle in a singlet, because I don’t want people wrestling in shirts on my show, even though Homicide did and plenty of people did. I’m like yeah alright, whatever.

“So I wrestled in the singlet, and it was fine, but I just felt like the singlet wasn’t me, and I don’t know why. You could say I was trying to find the fact that I’m fat, but everyone knows I am. I don’t know why, but I just find the t-shirt looks better. Some people might disagree strongly, but that’s fine. Some people agree, like PWG, I wrestled in the singlet in PWG before and they told me ‘you look better with the shirt’.

“So after a couple of months of not wrestling without the shirt at Ring of Honor I ask Gabe ‘can I just wrestle with the shirt on?’. I just feel more comfortable, I feel like I can be myself. When I don’t have the shirt I just feel like I’m this wrestler dude. And Gabe was like yeah fine whatever, but it wasn’t yeah fine whatever, because he went and told Punk what I said.

“Then that afternoon before the show, when I was going to wrestle Vordell Walker, I had already decided on the way up there I was going to wrestle without the shirt, because I already started without the shirt in Ring of Honor, so why would I start wearing it out of nowhere now. So I already made the decision to just wrestle in my singlet and gut it out.

“But that afternoon Punk just made a crack about me wrestling in the shirt, but whatever I didn’t care, Punk and I were on good terms. To me I took it as a joke, I don’t think he was trying to humiliate me, other people probably saw it differently.

“I did the match in the singlet and I came to the back and I was blown to sh*ts, I was blown up. But Punk was, and it was a very small locker room and people were minding their own business and talking their stuff out, but Punk was just standing there looking at me, and I was blown. I figured I’ll joke with him, I’ll joke back. I said ‘are you happy now?’, but I guess he took it like I was trying to show him up, which I wasn’t trying to, I was literally trying to have a relationship with this guy and just joke around with him, but I guess I was blown so maybe my tone was off I don’t know.

“He got very upset. He yelled at me and said I was disrespectful and all this stuff and for what it’s worth, if I had been in his position maybe I’d have thought the same. Now I know Punk a lot better, and I think he knows me a lot better too, and now it’s like a far thing, it’s like it never happened really, but people still talk about it because there was a lot of people in the locker room and everybody saw it, but I ended up saying okay, I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m sorry. That was it. It was no big deal.”

The AEW Connection

While Owens and Punk have their own issues together, Punk would also go on to have more real-life issues with close friends of Kevin Owens during his time in AEW.

The story of the issues and incidents with CM Punk within All Elite Wrestling need no introduction, with two of the main targets for his wrath being Matt and Nick Jackson of the Young Bucks, who are EVPs of the company.

Before joining AEW, The Young Bucks had already established themselves as one of the best tag teams of the modern era with notable stints atop ROH, PWG and NJPW.

The Bucks would form a close friendship with Kevin Steen during their time in ROH, with them making up 3/4 of Mount Rushmore alongside Adam Cole in the promotion.

With the way things ended between Punk and the Bucks in AEW, that likely didn’t help issues between he and Owens.

Kevin Owens ‘Doesn’t Care’ If CM Punk Changed Following WWE Return

We would get the latest on the relationship between the two men in 2024 ahead of WrestleMania XL, when Owens took part in an interview with Gorilla Position.

10 years on from the initial shoot interview where Owens downplayed the issues, he was a lot more openly hostile towards Punk a decade on following his WWE return.

When asked about Punk’s return and if he thinks he’s changed, Owens said:

“We have no relationship. We’re not each other’s type of people I don’t think. We’ll acknowledge each other, there’s like a 10 foot vicinity I’d say that if we enter in then we kinda have to ‘hey, hey’. Otherwise we just don’t, and it’s fine, it’s perfectly fine the way it is.

“I don’t know that (he’s changed), and I don’t care to be honest. He is who he is, I am who I am, and it’s fine that way.”

References To The Issues In First WWE SmackDown Promo

CM Punk and Kevin Owens took part in their first promo segment together on last week’s episode of SmackDown, and while the segment played off the issues between the two, they were not outright referenced.

Punk would make a sly jab at the t-shirt incident with Owens when he first entered the ring, telling him ‘I see you’re ready for a fight, you’ve got your gear on’ as Owens wore a t-shirt and pants.

Punk would also make references to Owens’ weight, saying ‘this company called me skinny fat, do you really think they were waiting on Kevin Owens’.

Owens would then reflect more of his real-life animosity between he and Punk, with him noting that he had heard about how he had changed, but Owens realised he was still the same ‘sociopath he always knew’.

With another segment between the two set for the August 14 WWE SmackDown show, it remains to be seen if the issues will be referenced more directly.

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• Smackdown
• wwe
• KEVIN OWENS
• cm punk

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