Phillip "Phil" Brooks (born October 26, 1978), better known by his ring name CM Punk, is an American professional wrestler currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling on its ECW brand. Before debuting in ECW, he was best known for his work on the independent circuit, especially as a member of the Ring of Honor (ROH) roster where he was a former ROH World Champion, head trainer of the wrestling school and was considered to be one of the three icons of ROH (along with Samoa Joe and Homicide). His professional wrestling gimmick is that of a follower of "straight edge", a culture which he follows in real life and of which he utilizes different aspects depending on his alignment.
• Early Career Punk was born in Chicago, Illinois and first wanted to be a professional wrestler after witnessing Roddy Piper crack a coconut over Jimmy Snuka's head during an edition of the Piper's Pit. His first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the "Lunatic Wrestling Federation" with his friends in the mid-late 1990s where he first started using the name CM Punk as part of the tag team the Chick Magnets along with CM Venom, when another performer skipped out on the card. He would later change that CM stood for Chick Magnet and instead portrayed the initials as having no meaning by giving different answers when asked, including "Cookie Monster", "Crooked Moonsault", "C. Montgomery Burns", "Charles Manson". After leaving the federation because unlike his friends Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun. Punk enrolled as a student at the "Steel Domain" wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel, Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler and as part of the training wrestled at St. Paul's Steel Domain Wrestling. It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton, who later adopted the stage name Colt Cabana. Brooks befriended Colton and spent most of the time working in the same independent promotions with Colton, as opponents or allies. In the independents Punk, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chuckie Smoothe, Adam Pearce and manager Dave Prazak, formed a professional wrestling stable named the Gold Bond Mafia.
Punk's home promotion for his early career is usually considered to be Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South). During Punk's time in IWA:Mid-South he had high profile feuds with his friend Colt Cabana and Chris Hero and rose 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. Notably his feud with Hero included a 56-minute TLC match, a 93-minute two out of three falls match and several 60-minute draws.Punk's matches with Cabana led him to getting a job in Ring of Honor. During his time in IWA:Mid-South he would also meet, wrestle against and become a friend of Eddie Guerrero. From February 2003 until May 2004 Punk refused to wrestle for IWA:Mid-South, which Punk claims was in protest to Ian Rotten's treatment of Chris Hero; however, Hero has stated he believes there were other reasons and Rotten's treatment of him was just an excuse by Punk to stop working for the company, but eventually he returned and continued to wrestle as well as be a commentator for IWA:Mid-South until 2005 when he was signed to World Wrestling Entertainment. His last match in IWA:Mid-South was on July 2, 2005 in which he had a sixty minute time limit draw with Delirious followed by a farewell speech.
• Ring Of Honor and Total Nonstop Action Punk joined Ring of Honor initially as a babyface, due to ROH employing a position with emphasis on wrestling and less on promos. At the same time Punk joined the wrestling promotion NWA:Total Nonstop Action, where he was soon paired with Julio Dinero as sidekicks for Raven as part of The Gathering.
Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH with notable achievements including being managed by Bobby Heenan at the Second Anniversary show during the tournament to crown the first ROH Pure Champion, however he came in second, losing to A.J. Styles in the finals, and winning the ROH Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana, both times defeating The Briscoe Brothers to win the championship.
Meanwhile in TNA on February 25, 2004 Punk had a physical scuffle with Teddy Hart that was broken up by Sabu outside of a restaurant shortly before a TNA show stemming from an ROH show in which Hart performed three unplanned spots putting several other wrestlers in danger of injury. Despite popular belief, he was not released from TNA for this incident and it had no real consequences on his TNA career. According to Punk he stopped appearing on TNA after being informed by TNA officials that he and Dinero had not gotten over as heels, having turned on Raven becoming a tag team managed by their old rival James Mitchell, and so the angle had been put on hold. Punk ended ties with TNA during the Rob Feinstein controversy when TNA was pulling wrestlers from ROH, such as A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels, to break ties to Feinstein. Punk instead chose to quit TNA to continue to compete in and help ROH. His contract with TNA ran out almost a year later.
In ROH Punk faced off against ROH World Champion Samoa Joe for the championship in a famous three match series. The first match, on June 12, 2004 at World Title Classic in Dayton, Ohio, resulted in a 60 minute time-limit draw when neither Punk nor Joe could pin or cause the other to submit in the sixty minutes. The second match between Samoa Joe and CM Punk was planned to have occurred on December 4, 2004 but because Steve Corino was pulled from a match with Samoa Joe by Pro Wrestling ZERO-ONE the second match was hastily rescheduled on October 11, 2004 for October 16 in Punk's hometown of Chicago, Illinois. At Joe vs. Punk II on October 16 they wrestled to a second 60 minute draw.
In June 2005, Punk accepted a deal with World Wrestling Entertainment, after wrestling try-out matches on its Sunday Night HEAT show. Even though he had accepted the deal, Punk went on to defeat Austin Aries to win the ROH World Championship on June 18, 2005 at Death Before Dishonor III with the Pepsi Plunge.
Immediately after the match Punk proceeded to turn heel and started an angle where he threatened to bring the ROH World Championship to WWE with him. For weeks, Punk teased the ROH locker room and the ROH fans as well as mocking the championship he possessed, going so far as to sign his WWE contract on it. A notable part of this angle was Mick Foley making several ROH appearances, attempting to convince Punk to do the right thing and defend the title on his way out.
On August 12, 2005 in Dayton, Ohio Punk lost the ROH World Championship to James Gibson in a four corner elimination match consisting of himself, Gibson, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels when Gibson countered the Pepsi Plunge with a Super Tigerbomb. His final match in Ring of Honor took place on August 13, 2005 against Colt Cabana in a 2 out of 3 falls match, which he lost. In his last match, he was visibly crying, and was showered with streamers when he posed in the middle of the ring.
Punk reappeared at the ROH show Unscripted II on February 11, 2006, due to a severe snowstorm which prevented several ROH wrestlers from attending. Punk asked for permission from WWE official Tommy Dreamer to appear so he could help out ROH. Dreamer approved and Punk appeared during the night to fill gaps where others were supposed to appear. In the main event, he teamed with Bryan Danielson to wrestle and ultimately defeat Jimmy Rave and Adam Pearce.