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What's the story?
It's been four years since fans have seen CM Punk in a professional wrestling ring, but the wrestler turned UFC Fighter continues to stay relevant through the thousands of fans who continue to chant his name at events.
Those chants resurfaced at WrestleMania 34 and Punk has responded to those criticisms two days after the show.
In case you didn't know
WrestleMania 34 featured Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns competing for the Uniiversal Championship in the main event that generated a massive backlash from the fans in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
70,000+ fans in attendance chanted "This is Awful," and "CM Punk" in defiance of a match many describe as one of the worst WrestleMania main events in years.
The heart of the matter
The comments that sparked the response from Punk were initiated by former WWE Tough Enough contestant A.J Kirsch who criticized fans for paying money to attend WrestleMania just to bring beach balls and chant Punk's name.
Several WWE Superstars and officials have expressed their disappointment at length for these actions, but Punk took exception to Kirsch using expletives to describe the fans and told Kirsch he was the one in the wrong for "telling them what to do with their own money."
Kirsch responded by standing by his criticism and insisted that this issue wasn't about Punk, but rather fans chanting for a man who's not involved in the wrestling business anymore.
Punk left the WWE in early 2014 citing creative differences and health issues before signing with the UFC later that year.
What's next?
Punk will return to the octagon to face Mike "The Truth" Jackson at UFC 225 in Chicago, Illinois.
This will mark his second fight since signing with the promotion and his first fight since his loss to Mickey Gall at UFC 203.
Author's take
There's a fine line between exercising your rights as a patron and hijacking a show.
But the fact that it only happened to Reigns, in a match many people have had issues with for weeks, says a lot more about his fight against Lesnar than WWE would like to fans to acknowledge.
