Punk's first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his friends and brother Mike Brooks in the mid-late 1990s. He first started using the ring name CM Punk when he was put into a tag team named the Chick Magnets with CM Venom after another performer skipped out on the card.[4][8][9] Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun.[4] When the promotion started taking off, doing spot shows out of a warehouse in Mokena, Illinois, Punk found out that his brother Mike had embezzled thousands of dollars from the small company, causing them to become estranged. Mike has not wrestled since.[10]
He soon left the federation and enrolled as a student at the "Steel Domain" wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel (Chris Guy),[3] Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler. As part of the training, he wrestled at Steel Domain Wrestling in St. Paul, Minnesota.[4][5] It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton,[11][12] who soon adopted the stage name Colt Cabana. Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent promotions, as opponents or allies.[11] In the independents, Punk, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chuckee Smooth, Adam Pearce and manager Dave Prazak, formed a alliance named the Gold Bond Mafia.[4]
Punk's home promotion for his early career is usually considered to be Independent Wrestling Association: Mid-South (IWA:Mid-South).[4] During Punk's time in IWA:Mid-South, he had high profile feuds with Colt Cabana and Chris Hero while also rising 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, beating stars like A.J. Styles, Cabana and even Eddie Guerrero for that Championship. Punk's feud with Hero included a 55-minute TLC match,[4] a 93-minute two out of three falls match,[5] and several 60-minute time limit draws.[12]
Punk's matches with Cabana led him to being hired by the Ring of Honor promotion.[5] From February 2003 until May 2004, Punk refused to wrestle for IWA:Mid-South, because he claims that this was in protest to Ian Rotten's mistreatment of Chris Hero in the company.[4] Hero, however, 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.[13] Eventually Punk returned to IWA:Mid-South and continued to perform as a wrestler and commentator for them until 2005 when he was signed to World Wrestling Entertainment. His last appearance in IWA:Mid-South was on July 2, 2005 in which he competed in a 60-minute time limit draw against Delirious
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