CM Punk Tells Story of His Classic Dark Match After Getting Banned By WWE

CM Punk has told the story of how he got unbanned on WWE’s extra talent list.

The Straight Edge star was part of the WWE’s SDCC 2025 panel, where they unveiled many new action figures. One of the figures featured Punk in a look from his 2003 SmackDown Dark match against The Road Warriors.

When asked about it, the former WWE champion told a story about the bout. He mentioned that he had been ‘banned’ from the list of extras only days before but he showed up to the show anyway:

“That particular guy is a person who wrestled the night before on a Monday Night Raw, was put on the ban list. Then I went to SmackDown anyway cuz I was like ‘Well all right, might as well get my money.’ The Road Warriors were supposed to do a dark match.”

CM Punk recalled WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter offering him a match at the show. While the former AEW star accepted the offer, the match did not go as he would have hoped as his partner knocked out one of their opponents:

“No offense to anybody else that was in attendance but all the rest of the extra talent were so rotten that Sgt. Slaughter came up to me and just said ‘You got your gear right kid? And I was like ‘Yes sir.’

[He said] ‘How would you like to work the Road Warriors?’ And I just said ‘Yes sir.’ I didn’t add ‘So I’m not banned anymore?’ It’s the fastest turnaround on a ban. I got to work the Road Warriors.

I think they just released that in the vault. So you got to see that match. My tag partner knocked Hawk unconscious. So that action figure might come with like a heart attack because that’s what I had on the apron watching this all unfold.”

WWE recently released the footage of this dark match including an introduction from CM Punk where he goes into more details of why he was banned and more. You can check it out below: