CM Punk shared a dark match segment with Steve Austin in 2010, and Punk recently recalled pitching the segment. Punk spoke on the No Contest Wrestling POdcast about the segment, which took place in San Diego following a Punk vs. Rey Mysterio dark match main event. Austin stunned a number of the roster to end the show for the live audience. You can see highlights below, per Fightful:
On doing dark match segments with Austin: “Doing dark match stuff with Austin. He would always be around. It was one of those things where he was retired and out of the ring. They would bring him in every once and again, maybe he had a TV show to promote or they wanted to pop the town. Wrestling has always had a difficult time figuring out what to do with people that are no longer in the ring, but are still extremely valuable. There are only so many coaching positions and not everybody is a good coach.
“You got a guy like Steve Austin, we were in San Diego and he’s backstage twiddling his thumbs. I think they were doing a season of Tough Enough. 2009ish. He’s sitting there, nobody is talking to him, he’s sitting by himself. I walk up to him and go, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Are you done for the night?’ ‘Yeah, I did my segment.’ ‘I have to do a dark match.’ The dark matches at that point were the worst. It was normally me vs. John (Cena), Rey (Mysterio), Undertaker, or Jeff (Hardy). I was always the heel doing stuff. We were in San Diego, so I assume it was Rey.”
On pitching the segment to Austin: “I’m looking at arguably the biggest star in the industry. I go, ‘You want to come out and send these people home happy?’ ‘Goddamn kid, what do you have in mind?’ ‘I’m supposed to do a dark match. I really don’t want to take a bunch of bumps. Nothing is going to make these people happier than me going out there, beating up Rey, inviting a bunch of other heels out, and then glass breaks. You want to give us all a bunch of Stunners?’ It’s the first time I saw that twinkle in Steve’s eye. ‘Goddamn kid, can we do that?’ You’re Steve Austin, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Now, I have to get the boys. I got Miz and Truth, ‘You guys want to take some Stunners?’ Everyone is like, ‘Yes, let’s go.’ We’re all nerds and geeks taking Stunners from Austin. He does a beer bath and those people went home happy. They are going to come back next time, ‘I had such a good time, I’m going to buy tickets now.’”
