In an interview with Instinct Culture’s Denise Salcedo at
San Diego Comic-Con, CM Punk credited the removal of Vince
McMahon from WWE as a big reason why he returned to the
company late last year.

He admitted that there were several things that had to fall
into place for him to return, with all the stars aligning
and a lot of dominoes falling in order.

But as luck would have it, everything Punk wanted to clear
his way to return, happened.

“Vince being out of picture, I think, probably illuminated
the way. I think that might have been one of the biggest
things,” Punk told Salcedo. “And that was both ways. It
wasn’t me, it wasn’t him, it was…there’s a lot of history
there. All of a sudden, one of us got removed from the
equation and it changed a lot of things.”

Punk said that while they all thought his return would be a
big deal for a variety of reasons, no one ever thought it
would exceed all expectations and then some.