WWE Champ CM Punk Has A Bone To Pick With Chris Brown

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 23, 2012 5:00PM

Chris Brown Photo credit: Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com; CM Punk Photo Credit: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

There's a feud happening online between singer Chris Brown and WWE Champion—Chicago's own CM Punk.

It all started Monday when Punk published a Tweet that read:

"I would like @chrisbrown fight somebody that can defend themselves. Me curb stomping that turd would be a #wrestlemania moment."

Brown took to his Twitter feed and responded (the tweets have since been taken down):

"Positivity regardless of how u feel! @CMpunk contact my assistant and I’ll have em send u an autographed pic for my biggest FAN!!

...

"@CMpunk needs more followers. He’s such a leader! Not to mention the roids hes on has made it utterly impossible for him pleasure a women."

The latter tweet hit too close to home for Punk (real name: Phil Brooks), who is vocal about his smoke, alcohol and drug-free lifestyle. So he responded with a video in which, among other things, he called Brown a "sad, cowardly little boy" whom he would "choke out."

"I never intended to include Chris Brown's name in one of my tweets to start some sort of a controversy or to gain publicity or anything like that. [But] now that he's throwing accusations my way about using steroids, I feel the need to reply," CM Punk says in the clip. "I'm a lifelong, proud, drug-free straight-edge individual."

He continues: "Chris and I come from two completely different worlds. I don't have a manager. I don't have a bodyguard—I don't need a bodyguard. [I don't have] an assistant. I have no need for a PR team to tell me what to tweet or when to delete tweets."

The video is below.

The feud has now made national headlines, with Conan O'Brien mentioning it in his monologue last night.

Some are wondering if this is some sort of scripted feud intended to capitalize somehow on the largely negative publicity Brown has received since his Grammys appearance. Knowing Punk, that seems unlikely. He's one of the best professional wrestlers in the business, and his "promos"—the interviews a wrestler gives during a performance—are well-known for adding elements of behind-the-scenes conflict and real-world drama to blur lines. Take this promo from a July WWE Raw in Las Vegas. At the time, his contract with WWE was set to expire and he promised to win the WWE title at the "Money in the Bank" pay per view event in Chicago.

Punk's contract was legitimately set to expire at the pay per view. He wound up winning the title and the promo catapulted him to mainstream stardom. He's been the best wrestler in the business since.

There's a remote possibility that Brown and Punk are playing their respective Twitter fanbases. WWE Chairman Vince McMahon also doesn't let a legitimate feud go to waste, so it's worth watching to see if Brown somehow crosses the line between reality and script and shows up on WWE programming as Wrestlemania 28 approaches.