on the Third Floor (2019) and Rabid (2019). Early life Phillip Jack Brooks was born in Chicago on October 26, 1978, the son of a housewife and an engineer. He grew up in nearby Lockport, where he attended Lockport Township High School. He has five siblings. His father struggled with alcoholism, which inspired Brooks to follow a straight edge lifestyle from an early age; his mother had bipolar disorder, causing him to become estranged from her. Professional wrestling career Early career and IWA Mid-South (1999–2005) Brooks' first venture into wrestling was a stint in a backyard wrestling federation called the Lunatic Wrestling Federation with his brother Mike and their friends in the mid-late 1990s. He had his debut match on March 13, 1999. 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; the CM stood for "Chick Magnet". Unlike his friends, Punk genuinely wanted to be a wrestler and saw it as more than simple fun. When the promotion started taking off while doing shows out of a warehouse in Mokena, Illinois, Punk found out that his brother had embezzled thousands of dollars from the small company, causing them to become estranged. They have not spoken since. Punk soon left the federation and enrolled as a student at the Steel Dominion wrestling school in Chicago, where he was trained by Ace Steel, Danny Dominion and Kevin Quinn to become a professional wrestler. As part of the training, he began wrestling at Steel Domain Wrestling in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1999. It was in the Steel Domain that he met Scott Colton, who soon adopted the ring name Colt Cabana. Punk and Cabana became best friends and spent most of their early career together working in the same independent promotions, as both opponents and tag team partners. In the independents, along with fellow Steel Domain graduates Colt Cabana, Chucke E. Smooth, Adam Pearce, and manager Dave Prazak, Punk formed an alliance named the Gold Bond Mafia. In 2002, Punk became the International Wrestling Cartel (IWC) Heavyweight Champion, in Monroeville, PA. Punk would compete in the company's Super Indy tournament, but never won the championship. Punk's home promotion for his early career was considered to be the Independent Wrestling Association Mid-South (IWA Mid-South). During Punk's time in IWA Mid-South,