CM Punk offered a rare behind-the-scenes perspective on WWE’s Unreal series during his appearance on Good Guy / Bad Guy with Daniel Cormier and Chael Sonnen, revealing how the Netflix show changed the public perception of one of wrestling’s most polarizing stars – Charlotte Flair.
While praising the five-episode documentary series, Punk said the show accomplished something significant by peeling back the curtain on the WWE locker room and giving fans a deeper look into the human beings behind the personas. In particular, he pointed to Charlotte Flair, whose on-screen dominance has often drawn criticism and misunderstanding from fans.
“You get to see somebody like Charlotte, and it humanizes her,” Punk said. “There’s the wrestling fans and especially the ones who are consuming this, the hardcore wrestling fans – they’re always going to watch, but they all have these parasocial relationships with us. They think they know us.”
Punk suggested that Unreal challenged those assumptions. “This can kind of peel back the curtain a little bit to show you that like, no, man, we have real human emotions. We’re human beings just like everybody else. You probably don’t know us the way you think you do.”
He emphasized how that shift in perspective applied directly to Charlotte. “A lot of the time, [she’s] grossly misunderstood,” Punk explained. “I think this kind of makes it… it softens her a little bit. And you get to see Ashley instead of Charlotte.”
Charlotte Flair – real name Ashley Fliehr – has often been at the center of heated fan discourse. As a 14-time World Champion, her success has sparked both admiration and resentment from fans who claim she’s been “overpushed.” Punk seemed to understand that dynamic intimately and praised the show for spotlighting the person behind the accolades.
Cormier agreed, sharing his personal experience with Flair at WrestleMania: “I was like, wow, she is so much nicer than you gain the idea from just people, right?” He added, “All I went into the interview with was all the ideas of what I hear online… but it’s just because she’s winning. Everybody loves you when you win initially, then they start to hate you because you win too much.”
Punk also acknowledged that Unreal might have revealed more than some veterans were comfortable with. He admitted to being “old school” and raised concerns about exposing too many industry secrets. “You’re taught to protect the business. You’re taught to not give away your secrets,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that are just for us.”
Despite that hesitation, Punk gave the series high marks overall: “I watched all five episodes and there were some things, of course, I rolled my eyes at and I was annoyed at, but 90% – my takeaway was this was fantastic.”
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