WWE's Zelina Vega clarifies her stance on CM Punk
Zelina Vega Credit: WWE
Zelina Vega is happy to clarify the meaning behind her cryptic social media post that caused quite the stir among wrestling fans last weekend.
She wasn’t talking about CM Punk’s future. But she’s got no problem doing so.
“I wish him the best,” the WWE women’s star said in an interview Wednesday. “Would it be great to see him again? Absolutely.”
Just hours after news surfaced that Punk had been fired from AEW following his latest backstage brawl, Vega took to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter on Sunday night and posted a big, red “X.” Because the symbol is closely associated with Punk, who regularly sports an “X” on each of his taped-up hands, on his merchandise, and even on his “real” AEW world championship belt, several fans concluded that Vega was subtly lobbying for Punk to rejoin WWE. Punk famously departed the company on the worst of terms nearly a decade ago.
But, alas, Vega said her tweet wasn’t aimed at Punk, but rather another, polarizing wrestling figure — Dominik Mysterio.
The message was posted just after her Latino World Order partner, Rey Mysterio — Dominik’s father — made his way to the ring for his match at WWE’s Payback premium live event Sunday night.
“Rey had this jacket on during our entrance, and he put a big, red ‘X’ on Dominik’s face, because his face was on the jacket,” Vega explained. “And that became the thing — putting a big, red, ‘X’ on Dominik’s face. So that was something we were going to run with.”
That doesn’t mean Vega is shy about addressing the controversy surrounding Punk, whose AEW departure followed several, very real dust-ups with fellow AEW wrestlers and executives.
“I don’t know much about his situation with AEW, but I have always had a fantastic relationship with CM Punk. You hear all these things about him. I am so big on not listening to other people’s experiences, the dirt sheets, all that crap,” said Vega, who made it clear she’d be happy to see the Chicago wrestling legend back in the WWE fold.
Whether or not Punk would be interested in returning to WWE — or legally able to do so anytime soon, remains unclear. In a statement issued Saturday, AEW said its employment agreement with Punk had been terminated “with cause, effective immediately.”
AEW CEO Tony Khan didn’t offer much more clarity on Punk’s situation while addressing the press following the company’s All Out pay-per-view event on Sunday.
“As far as what’s going to happen in the future, I can’t speak to that,” Khan said. “I’m not the attorneys who interpret all that language and stuff.”
Vega said “there’s so many reasons” she’d like to see a Punk return, “not just for me, but for the fans.”
“He’s always been a fantastic person, Vega said of Punk, who worked alongside her husband, Malakai Black, in AEW. “There’s layers to people. And when people are just so hung up on the outer layers of what a person can be, you get stuck there. And if you want to stay there, that’s great. But when you get to know the core of a person, that’s where I like to hang out.”
Vega’s public defense of Punk following his firing comes three years after Punk did the same for her. After Vega was temporarily released from WWE in 2020 over a dispute involving her Twitch channel, Punk stuck up for her in a podcast interview.
“To me, Punk’s been nothing but great,” Vega said. “So will the ‘X’ be meaning putting an ‘X’ on Dominik’s face, and CM Punk? It absolutely can be, because, I’m a big supporter of him. And he’s always been that way for me.”
The Queens native expects to have plenty more support from a hometown crowd when WWE returns to the Nassau Coliseum on Saturday. The event is being branded as Saturday Night’s Main Event — a callback to the iconic NBC primetime series from the 1980s that got its start at the Uniondale arena 38 years ago.
Although Vega wasn’t even born at the time, she said there’s plenty to learn from some of the “Rock n’ Wrestling” era stars that appeared on that show, including WWE Hall of Fame inductee Wendy Richter, whose athleticism and intensity was ahead of her time, according to Vega.
“It’s funny, people always go, ‘Until now, the girls have always been just eye candy.’ And it’s like, ‘Hold on!’ Back then, you see that [Richter] kind of started that all,” Vega said of Richter, who was accompanied by Cyndi Lauper at the first Saturday Night’s Main Event. “When you look back, you get to have proof of something like that.”
Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.
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