Former US Champion praised by Vince Russo for talking trash about CM Punk (Exclusive)

A former United States Champion took a big dig at CM Punk and was praised by Vince Russo for doing so. The reasoning behind this is that Russo believes the ex-US Champion in question could back it up in a real fight.

On the latest episode of The Wrestling Outlaws, host Dr. Chris Featherstone asked longtime wrestling veteran and ex-WWE writer Vince Russo about the comments Matt Riddle made against CM Punk, where he accused The Second City Saint of being a pain to work with backstage.

According to Vince Russo, the fact that Matt Riddle can back up his talk (due to his MMA background) is why he loves it when he takes shots at stars like Punk and Goldberg:

"When he [Matt Riddle] says stuff like this and stuff he said to Goldberg in the past, I love it because the guy's got to be able to back up what he says. You know what I mean? That's why I love it. He's talking smack with Goldberg and CM Punk. If he ever ran into one of these guys, I think we saw it with Goldberg, I don't think he's got a problem." (5:09-5:42)

R-Truth wanted to 'kill' former WWE writer. More details HERE

You can watch the full video below:

CM Punk's Saturday Night's Main Event match was criticized by a WWE Hall of Famer.

CM Punk competed in a tag team match alongside Sami Zayn at Saturday Night's Main Event, where he lost after the return of "Big" Bronson Reed, who aligned himself with his biggest rival in 2024, Seth Rollins.

On the 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff was critical of the tag team match. While he didn't criticize Punk or any of the individual performers (Bron Breakker, Seth Rollins, and Sami Zayn), the WWE Hall of Famer felt it was too rushed:

"Biggest takeaway for me, which affected everything that I say from this point forward, the pace was horrible. To me, it was so obvious in the very first match. Everything felt rushed. That match was just bing, bing, bing, bing. The pace of that match, and it was consistent from the very beginning to the very end, it was like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, finish. There was no ebbs and flows of it, in terms of what was going on in the ring and the drama that they were trying to create." [11:50 – 12:38]

Punk would go on to have a highly-acclaimed Triple Threat match on RAW, which also happened to be a Money in the Bank qualifier. He crossed paths with AJ Styles after two decades, but it was El Grande Americano who walked out victorious.

Punk's next match is going to be in the main event of Night of Champions 2025, where he takes on John Cena one last time to close their storied rivalry.

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Edited by Rohit Nath