Legend addresses rumors that WWE planned to remove CM Punk from the record books
CM Punk held the WWE Championship for 434 days between November 20, 2011, and January 27, 2013. WWE Hall of Famer Road Dogg recently revealed the truth about whether the company's higher-ups initially wanted AJ Styles to surpass that number.
Styles' second reign as WWE Champion lasted 371 days between November 7, 2017, and November 13, 2018. At one stage, it was heavily speculated that some within WWE planned for The Phenomenal One to beat Punk's tally of 434 days.
Road Dogg was SmackDown's lead writer throughout Styles' year-long WWE Championship reign. On his Oh You Didn't Know? podcast, the WWE legend addressed whether Punk's number of days with the title played a part in Styles' booking:
"It's not. You know when you put the title on a guy, he's gonna have it for a minute, unless he's The Iron Sheik, unless he's just the guy to get it to the other guy. But you don't think like that. You have conversations way before that about, 'Hey, what if we put the title on X?' And then he goes, 'Okay, let's just start from there. Who are his opponents?'" [57:24 – 57:52]
As Road Dogg referenced, The Iron Sheik only held the WWE Championship for 28 days before losing the title to Hulk Hogan in 1984.
Road Dogg plays down CM Punk conspiracy rumors
At the time of AJ Styles' title reign, CM Punk still had a bad relationship with WWE stemming from his 2014 walkout. The manner of Punk's departure led many to believe that WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon wanted to remove him from the record books.
According to Road Dogg, such conversations do not take place in backstage production meetings:
"It's all phony-baloney wrestling. I love it, and everybody that I know loves it too, and we get together and talk about it a bunch, and then one guy says, 'Yep, that's what we're doing,' or, 'Nope, we're not doing that. Get back to the drawing board.'" [58:39 – 58:51]
CM Punk held the 21st-century record for the number of days as WWE Champion until Roman Reigns surpassed his tally of 434 days in June. Including his Universal Championship reign, The Tribal Chief has held at least one WWE world title for the last 1,174 days.
Do you think Vince McMahon wanted CM Punk's record to be broken? Let us know in the comments section below.
Please credit Oh You Didn't Know? and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.