CM Punk

Phillip Jack Brooks (born October 26, 1978), better known by the ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler, actor, and former mixed martial artist.

He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand.

Brooks' 434-day reign as WWE Champion stands recognized as the seventh longest overall.

Phillip Jack Brooks was born in Chicago on October 26, 1978, the son of a housewife and an engineer.

He grew up in nearby Lockport, Illinois, where he attended Lockport Township High School.

He has five siblings.

His father struggled with alcoholism, which inspired Brooks to follow a straight edge lifestyle from an early age; his mother had bipolar disorder, causing him to become estranged from her.

He cites "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as an early influence and the reason he became a wrestler.

Brooks' first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his brother Mike and their friends in the mid-late 1990s.

Brooks began his professional wrestling career in 1997 on the independent circuit, mainly with Ring of Honor (ROH), where he won the ROH World Championship once.

He had his debut match by October 25, 1997, on the eve of his 19th birthday.

He first started using the ring name CM Punk when he was put into a tag team named the "Chick Magnets" with CM Venom after another performer skipped out on the card; the CM stood for "Chick Magnet".

Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun.

When the promotion started taking off while doing shows out of a warehouse in Mokena, Illinois, Punk found out that his brother had embezzled thousands of dollars from the small company, causing them to become estranged.

They have not spoken since.

Punk soon left the Lunatic Wrestling Federation and enrolled as a student at the Steel Dominion wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel, Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler.

As part of the training, he began wrestling at Steel Domain Wrestling in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1999.

It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton, who soon adopted the ring name Colt Cabana.

Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent promotions, as both opponents and tag team partners.

In the independents, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chucke E. Smooth, Adam Pearce, and manager Dave Prazak, Punk formed an alliance named the Gold Bond Mafia.

In 2002, Punk became the International Wrestling Cartel (IWC) Heavyweight Champion, in Monroeville, PA.

Punk would compete in the company's Super Indy tournament, but never won the championship.

Punk's home promotion for his early career was considered to be the Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South (IWA Mid-South).

During Punk's time in IWA Mid-South, he had high-profile feuds with Colt Cabana and Chris Hero while also rising to the top of the roster, winning the IWA Mid-South Light Heavyweight Championship twice and the IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Championship on five separate occasions, beating wrestlers like AJ Styles, Cabana, and Eddie Guerrero in matches for the heavyweight championship.

Punk's feud with Hero included a 55-minute Tables, Ladders, and Chairs (TLC) match, a 93-minute two out of three falls match and several 60-minute time limit draws.

He signed with WWE in 2005 and won the WWE Championship twice, the World Heavyweight Championship three times, and the WWE Intercontinental Championship, the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, and the World Tag Team Championship once each.

He is the only back-to-back Money in the Bank ladder match winner, won Superstar of the Year at the 2011 Slammy Awards, and was voted PWI Wrestler of the Year in 2011 and 2012.

After becoming disillusioned with WWE, Brooks acrimoniously departed the promotion in 2014, largely retiring from wrestling.

After leaving WWE in 2014, Brooks pursued a career in mixed martial arts and signed with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

A welterweight, he lost via submission to Mickey Gall in his professional debut at UFC 203 in 2016.

He lost his second fight to Mike Jackson via unanimous decision at UFC 225 in 2018 (later overturned to a no-contest) and was released.

Brooks currently appears as a part-time color commentator for Cage Fury Fighting Championships.

From 2019 to 2020, he appeared as a pundit on WWE Backstage.

He returned to the ring in 2021 by signing with All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he won the AEW World Championship twice, but was terminated in September 2023 after backstage controversies.

He returned to WWE two months later at Survivor Series.

Brooks has used the CM Punk moniker for his entire career.

His character has been consistently portrayed as outspoken, confrontational, sharp-tongued, anti-establishment, straight edge, and iconoclastic, most of which are inspired by his real-life self.

Depending on his alignment as a hero or villain, he has emphasized different aspects to garner heat and discourse.

Brooks has starred in the horror films Girl on the Third Floor, Rabid (both 2019), and Jakob's Wife (2021).

He also had a recurring role in the wrestling drama series Heels (2021–2023).