Caption: Punk stands in the ring with his “real” World Championship on Collision

By Ryan Harless

Ryan Harless is a fourth-year undergraduate at BGSU from Hillsboro, Ohio. He is majoring in Sport Management with a Journalism Minor. Baseball and golf at all levels are his primary interests but he is also interested in combat sports, hockey, basketball, and football.

September 11, 2023

Let’s go back in time to August 20^th, 2021. It is the first ever episode of AEW Rampage airing live from the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. Fans are restless in their seats awaiting something huge, something that has had no formal announcement to this point. Just pure speculation.

Suddenly, a familiar guitar riff hits the PA system in Chicago, and we hear the intro to Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality”. As soon as that all too familiar song starts, it is instantly drowned out by the loudest cheers I have ever heard while watching wrestling. Finally, CM Punk has returned to wrestling after seven long years.

And that was just about as good as it got.

CM Punk stepped out into the arena and challenged fan favorite Darby Allen to a match at the nest Pay-Per View which Punk would go on to win. Next, he entered a feud with longtime rival both in the ring and outside of it, Eddie Kingston. Punk would go on to defeat Kingston at AEW Full Gear.

Following his program with Kingston, Punk entered what some might consider the best feud of his career with a young star named Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF). This feud was built on the fact that Punk was MJF’s idol growing up as part of the reason he got into the wrestling business.

They provided some of the best TV I have ever watched with promos tearing down one another for their past actions. MJF called Punk a quitter for walking away from the wrestling business seven years before and never looking back to care about his fans, and Punk retorted calling MJF a flash in the pan.

Their feud culminated in a bloody, violent, and beautiful dog collar match at AEW: Revolution.

After this the issues began. Punk started a program with the AEW World Champion at the time “Hangman” Adam Page, a homegrown fan favorite. The two had very heated promos against one another and Punk seemed to be taking more of a “shoot” angle with it (In wrestling, a “shoot” is when something is happening for real and wasn’t planned by anyone. The inverse to this is a “work”).

Punk made comments about Page’s mental health and even his professionalism. The two finally met in a match for Page’s title at AEW: Double or Nothing. After a lackluster match where Punk didn’t look smooth and even got injured, Punk managed to defeat Hangman and become the AEW World Champion.

The following week, Punk announced that he had to take a hiatus from in-ring action to heal from injury but there would be an interim champion to be determined in the coming weeks. That interim champion ended up being Jon Moxley.

Shortly after AEW’s Forbidden Door PPV that ran alongside New Japan Pro Wrestling, Punk returned to TV to challenge Moxley to determine the true champion. Two weeks later, the two faced off on AEW Dynamite and Moxley QUICKLY dispatched Punk. This match made many people question what was happening with CM Punk behind the scenes because this dominating victory made no real sense in storyline terms.

Moxley laid out an open challenge for AEW All Out and the challenge was accepted by CM Punk. The two had a decent match and Punk ended up getting the victory and becoming a two-time AEW World Champion.

Now we swiftly enter the dark times.

Instantly following the show, AEW held a press conference where the owner of the company Tony Khan as well as a revolving door of wrestlers who were on the show, answered questions from wrestling journalists. This is commonplace for AEW, as they have been doing so for years.

In a now infamous incident, CM Punk joined Khan at the conference with a muffin from catering in tow and let loose. He began talking about his frayed relationship with another AEW talent Colt Cabana. The two had been best friends for years but had an ugly falling out following comments made by Punk at Cabana’s expense.

Punk said, “It’s 2022, I haven’t been friends with this guy since at least 2014, late 2013. And the fact that I have to sit up here—because we have irresponsible people who call themselves EVPs and couldn’t (expletive) manage a Target; and they spread lies and (expletive) and put into a media that I got somebody fired when I have (expletive) all to do with him. Want nothing to do with him. Do not care where he works, where he doesn’t work, where he eats, where he sleeps. And the fact that I have to get up here and do this in 2022 is (expletive) embarrassing. And if y’all are at fault, (expletive) you, if you’re not, I apologize.”

Now those EVP’s Punk mentioned are The Elite (Kenny Omega, Nick and Matt Jackson) who are wrestlers for AEW who actually were the driving force behind starting the company up.

Punk then turned his attention to Hangman and the fact that he felt Page had taken liberties with him throughout their match as well as in promos in the weeks prior saying, “What did I ever do in this world to deserve an empty-headed, (expletive) dumb (expletive) like Hangman Adam Page to go out on national television, and (expletive) go into business for himself? For what? What did I do?”

This stemmed from an incident where Punk felt slighted by Hangman because Hangman didn’t seek Punk out for wrestling advice. Keep in mind, Page has been active in the business since 2009 and probably knows his fair share about it.

Punk continued, “I gave him a (expletive) chance, it did not get handled and you saw what I had to do, which is very regrettable, lowering myself to his (expletive) level. But that’s where we’re at right now, and I’ll still walk up and down this hallway and say ‘if you have a (expletive) problem with me, take it up with me. Let’s (expletive) go.’”

“I’m hurt, and I’m old and I’m (expletive) tired, and I work with (expletive) children,”

These remarks sent shockwaves through the wrestling industry, but the worst was yet to come. Following the comments made by Punk, The Elite (the three EVP’s from earlier) went to Punk’s locker room to talk about what had happened.

What transpired next is something that only those involved will know the truth of. However, what we do know is that there was a brawl between the parties. Alongside Punk in this battle was longtime friend Ace Steel, someone who AEW had to sign alongside Punk as a request from Punk himself.

Punk and The Elite were suspended, and things went back to schedule for nine months. With Punk having issues with a large portion of the locker room, AEW decided to essentially give him his own show with a locker room of folks that he wouldn’t treat poorly. Punk returned to AEW Collision on June 17^th of this year.

After a few weeks of shaking off the ring rust, Punk declared himself the current AEW World Champion since he was never defeated for the title but was only stripped after being suspended. After declaring himself the “real” world champion, Punk set his belt down, grabbed a can of black spray-paint and painted a massive “X” (one of Punk’s signature displays is an X due to his straight-edge lifestyle) over the face of the belt.

AEW was preparing for their show All Out which they touted as the biggest wrestling event of all time as it was being held in a sold-out Wembley Stadium in London to the largest paid crowd in wrestling history. They turned to Punk and an old rival of his, Samoa Joe to put on a match for Punk’s “real” world title to open the show. These two had one of the most acclaimed rivalries in Ring of Honor wrestling in the mid 2000’s and prior to All Out, Punk had never managed to defeat Joe.

For this next part of the saga, I need to provide some context. Jack Perry, another AEW wrestler, had issues with Punk in the recent past when they were scheduled to feud for a few weeks. Apparently, there was a segment they wanted to shoot involving glass of some sort. Perry suggested using real glass for the shot, but Punk resisted resulting in an argument that led to the feud being dropped.

Perry had the last match on the All Out preshow against HOOK. During the match, Perry dragged HOOK over to the limo in which Perry made his entrance, knocked on the windshield, and said into the camera, “Hear that? Real glass, go cry me a river.” And then they continued with the match as planned.

Well, someone took offense to that (Punk, of course) and following his match against Joe, headed backstage to confront Perry. Punk reportedly went nose-to-nose with Perry and asked if he had a problem. Perry responded saying the comment was a way for him to get a reaction from the crowd as he was playing the heel.

Punk then allegedly sucker punched Perry before putting him in a chokehold before the two were separated. Punk then lunged at boss and AEW owner Tony Khan while allegedly yelling “I quit!”

The parties were again separated, and the show went on. But as word got out about the incident, people could feel that something big was going to happen. It came out before AEW Collision began its taping that AEW had severed ties with Punk and that the two would no longer be working together.

Kahn came out and explained the situation to the folks in attendance at Collision but wasn’t received well. Kahn said that he wished he didn’t have to make the decision, but Punk made him and others backstage fear for their safety and that has no place in AEW.

Now where do we go from here? Punk could go back to WWE but many people there have already expressed their disdain for him. Most notably, Seth Rollins calling him a cancer in an interview. He could go back to the UFC where he fought a few bouts and was made to look a fool.

I’d say that with who Punk is, he will likely never return to pro wrestling. I could see him starting a podcast where he could spill all of the drama from his side, but we already know the information. All I know is that the CM Punk saga looks to be over for the time being. What a wild ride it has been!