Darren Young shares a CM Punk story.
CM Punk has been the talk of the wrestling world this week as he returned to WWE television on Tuesday after a five-plus year hiatus. Punk made a surprise appearance at the end of WWE Backstage, where it was revealed he has joined the show as a special contributor and analyst.
Darren Young (Fred Rosser) has a long history with Punk as Punk served as Young's mentor on the first season of NXT in 2010. In an article written for Sportskeeda, Young shared the story of Punk embracing him in the WWE locker room after Young came out as gay.
"Fast forward to when I came out publicly to the world as the first openly gay WWE Superstar in the summer of 2013, CM - back after his brutal match with Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam - made it a point to literally embrace me in front of everybody watching the live feed in catering. Punk had just literally finished his match at SummerSlam match with Brock Lesnar, iced up from head to toe, when he made it a point to come up to me in the catering area and told me to stand up and give him a hug," Young wrote. "He said, 'I'm very proud of you for coming out and being so courageous. If you have any problem with anyone in the locker room you let me know and I'll take care of it.' I was shocked! Here he'd just finished his match with Brock Lesnar and yet was being thoughtful enough to come up to me and show me love like that was something that completely caught me off guard in a huge way."
Punk is scheduled to be on the Nov. 19 episode of WWE Backstage. You can view behind the scenes footage of Punk's return, including quotes from Punk about the return, by clicking here. Fightful was also able to gather backstage reactions from various WWE superstars. You can read their reactions by clicking here.