In a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, WWE superstar Randy Orton discussed several topics, including how Paul “Triple H” Levesque informed him of CM Punk’s return to the WWE at Survivor Series, noting that it only came together a few days before the event took place.

“The day of Survivor Series, I’m about to get my boots on, I’m feeling the nerves, it had been a year-and-a-half, Triple H is like, hey Randy, I’ve got to talk to you for a second and I’m like yeah, what’s up man, so he told me a couple of things and then he went, one more thing, Punl’s returning tonight.

I thought he was f*****g with me, I said you’re joking and he was like, no I’m not, this is something that just happened in the last few days, yada yada yada. I was so excited for this surprise return, that’s never really been the case, they’ve always kind of stooged off the fact I was returning, they wanted those views, so I’d never had that surprise return.

I could have been really p*****, and old Randy would have been p*****, it was a defining moment for me, I went out there, we had a great WarGames Match, everybody was excited that I returned, everybody was excited that Punk returned and neither return stepped on each other. It was a testament to how much I’d grown, it would have been an issue only if I made it one, so I was proud of the way I handled it.”

The full interview is available at this link.