© WWE

Endometriosis Is Not an Insult, and Other Things Wrestlers Who Claim to Be Allies Need to Know

By: Hillary

On Friday, August 14, 2026, as part of the setup to a new feud between Kevin Owens and CM Punk on “SmackDown”, the two had a live promo segment. The lead-in to Punk’s comment was Owens claiming Punk views him as a fat indy slob. Punk’s reply was that he called out Oba Femi, and instead got endometriosis.

From a quick scan around social media, discourse has….not been great. Some people gave Punk undeserved kudos, telling others to google the term and that he was raising awareness by using that insult to KO. Others thought it was a misfired fat joke and he really meant “endomorph”; still, others didn’t even clock it. A quick survey of wrestling media over the weekend found one article (using the very scientific first page of google results with the search terms “CM Punk” “Endometriosis”), from E Wrestling News commenting on fan backlash titled, “Fans Slam CM Punk For Tasteless Endometriosis Jibe On WWE SmackDown”, which predictably did a round up of social media posts about the jibe. Credit where credit is due, the article does address that endometriosis does not in and of itself cause weight gain, in an attempt to tie the line into a fat joke. Further hunting found Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful noting people could google the term/disease if they didn’t know what it was on facebook but not proscribing commentary in any other way. The silence from the media at large has been deafening. I imagine it’s partly that people like to pretend that women aren’t pro wrestling fans and as such, no outcry is needed. Interestingly, the article I linked above attempted to tie this to the outcry related to Ricochet and multiple sclerosis. Is it because endo, unlike MS, is something primarily suffered by women that the media writ large are silent? Or is it something else? These were the things I have been wrestling with in the past few days after hearing about (and then watching) that promo. In a time and place where female wrestling fans are discouraged from publicly partaking in our fandom, ignored, or denigrated, is this silence one of those symptoms?

Regardless of Punk’s intentions, is the lack of response a response, in and of itself? While you sit with this disquiet, let’s ask another few questions: Was Punk’s intent to call Kevin Owens a woman as an insult, by calling out a primarily (and I am going to get back to why I keep qualifying that I promise) women’s disease? Or the fact that while endometriosis itself is not a cause of weight gain, the only way to manage (there is no cure) the disease is to use birth control, which does have the side effect of weight gain, meaning he was using the disease to call Kevin Owens fat? Was the man who claims to be one of the best promos in the business just at a loss for words and meant something else?

But if so – why not get out in front of things and send out a message to fans immediately explaining the word he meant to use? Unless he doesn’t really care about the misogyny, that is. I struggle with all of these questions, as well as my place in this fandom, as a woman who has been watching on and off since my dad took me to the “Monday Night Raw” that saw John Cena’s first appearance at Hoffman Estates in 2002 (I am old, y’all).

If there is a silver lining to this, it’s that despite what these questions portend writ large, the fandom has expanded. It’s grown to a point where an outlet like the Social Suplex Newsletter allowed me to write this piece and share it with you all. It also gives us all an opportunity to educate on ‘endometriosis’ and maybe shed some light on an issue that impacts one in 10 women.

Some facts before we get started – what is endometriosis? Per the Mayo Clinic, endometriosis is a “condition in which tissue that is similar to the inner lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus.” This causes severe pain every month for women enduring their menstrual cycles. “Surrounding tissue can become irritated and form scar tissue. Bands of fibrous tissue called adhesions also may form. These can cause pelvic tissues and organs to stick to each other.“ Because it is directly related to periods, endometriosis is likely under-diagnosed. Doctors aren’t….great at listening to women. Anecdotally, I know several who were told explicitly by their doctors to toughen up because that’s how periods are meant to feel. This is such a widespread phenomena, that Science.org did a profile on a leading endo researcher one year ago, where she commented on the same experience as what led her into the field. In “Probing the Pain”, written by Meredith Wadman, Dr. Burns told a story many girls and young women may find familiar: “when she was a teenager and the pain became agonizing, she would crawl under her bed and lie bellydown on the wood floor. She’d clutch a calculator and do “random” math problems to distract herself from the feeling that invisible hands were wringing out her uterus like a washcloth.” As I stated before…this pain, which can knock women out for days (one person I know told me she didn’t realize she was in labor, because labor literally hurt less than her monthly cycle) has no medication or other treatment.

Yet, despite the overwhelming pain and the large numbers of women who face it, there is little to no research ongoing related to this disease (by scientists writ large, Dr. Burns is an anomaly). In fact, when it’s been researched, it’s not been about how to help women. Rather, it’s largely researched in how it affects men. Two recent studies that came to my attention were particularly egregious. There was a seven year long Italian study that sought to determine the attractiveness of women with the disease to men, which was later retracted due to outcry. There was also a study on whether men get it and how it impacts them in Healthline’s “Can Men Have Endometriosis? 11 Things to Know.”

Until a month ago worldwide (and still the case outside of the UK), the only way to diagnose endometriosis was by a literal surgery where a woman has to be put under general anesthesia as doctors perform exploratory surgery to visually confirm the disease. Only last month were tests created and are being provided in the UK. This is groundbreaking and genuine good news, and is a silver lining in and of itself.

Now with all of that knowledge under our belts, let’s return to CM Punk and Kevin Owens and that promo. If Punk intended to link endo to Owens’ weight or to imply he was a woman, both would be in inexcusably poor taste, especially considering how little research on endometriosis actually takes women into account and the focus being primarily on men. That he didn’t issue a correction, and there has been no education or discourse attempted? I am not sure who the heel is in this segment. But now maybe, just maybe, we can begin to discuss, and to ensure that every part of the wrestling fandom has the opportunity to be represented at the table. We do matter, and we are here. Watching.