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When CM Punk signed up to join AEW, he was hoping to become a member of professional wrestling's first true alternative to WWE in almost 20 years.
Instead? Well, he found himself in an “American Nightmare” that he ultimately woke up from by choking out Jack Perry at All In ahead of his return to WWE a few months later at Survivor Series.
Still, in the end, Punk did feel as though he accomplished some pretty incredible things during his time with the promotion, even if he didn't exactly understand the point of the business he was working for, as, in his opinion, it wasn't making money or selling tickets.
“Yeah. I think people expect me to be like, ‘Blah, burn it all down.’ I made a lot of great friends there, which is ironic. The people you work with, you wind up becoming friends with. I did cool stuff,” CM Punk noted via Fightful. “I got to work with Sting. Talk about a weird thing. It’s not even on the bucket list because it’s something you don’t consider as a possibility. I worked with Sting in the Greensboro Coliseum. It’s wild. I think the positives outweigh the negatives. I thought I was coming in to help. To help business. If I could teach something, great. I think I was brought in for other reasons. Their business, I know a lot of people are going to be upset, it’s not a real business. It’s not about selling tickets or drawing money. It’s not about making money. It’s just not.”
So, if AEW isn't about making money, what, Helwani asked, is the promotion all about? Well, in the opinion of Punk, the answer is far less clear.
“I don’t know. I think having good matches, maybe?” Punk posited. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I was recently at an indie show, and somebody asked me, ‘Did you watch my match?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Can you give me anything?’ I was almost faced with this dilemma where I was like, I looked at her and said, ‘What do you think I’m going to say?’ ‘You’re going to tell me I need to sell more and not do as many moves.’ ‘Yeah, okay.’ It’s a preference. It’s a flavor of ice cream. I asked, ‘What’s the house here tonight?’ ‘It’s sold out.’ Some arcade bar in Chicago. ‘What can I tell you? You sold the place out. At this level. You’re doing everything you can.’ That s**t does not fly on national television. I think that’s being proven right now. Maybe sometimes. Maybe bites here and there. It’s not a sustainable business.”
What does it mean to run a business in 2024? If the goal is to make money, then Punk might have a point, as AEW famously hasn't earned a profit over its five years of operation thus far. If, however, the point of the company remains to build something sustainable, then Khan's commitment to keeping AEW going as it continues to build up clout within the entertainment industry appears to be successful. Saying that AEW's style of wrestling doesn't work on television, however, isn't as proven as Punk may think, as WWE has been showcasing more AEW-style matches as of late, especially with the new WWE Speed on social media.
CM Punk is asked what it was like to work for Tony Khan.#TheMMAHour pic.twitter.com/o0gwpVvKSF
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) April 1, 2024
CM Punk doesn't believe AEW is going away any time soon.
After boldly declaring to Ariel Helwani that AEW will be around for as long as Tony Khan is willing to bankroll it, CM Punk was asked how the promotion could become successful, to which he noted that success is all in the eye of the beholder.
“What’s successful? I started on the indies. To me, successful was, ‘I can eat tonight. I have gas money to get to where I was going, and I had a good match.’ You get to television, and as somebody coming in who doesn’t know s**t about television, I have to lean on people, ask questions, learn, watch grow. A lot of people are still stuff in the indie mindset. It’s where I came from. There is nothing wrong with it. If you are more happy with some goof saying you had a five-star match and the building is a quarter full, we’re not in the same business,” CM Punk declared.
“I think maybe if I looked at it that way, at the time, I maybe would have handled things differently. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wasn’t hired to just be a wrestler. I very much had two contracts. I was a consultant to Tony or whatever the h*ll it was. If you’re going to tell me, ‘You can’t tell wrestlers to do it.’ Okay, great. We give away too much, so there is that small niche audience that is more consumed about what is going on in my life and this backstage stuff. I’m just glad to be out. They obviously didn’t want me there. I’m sure Tony probably still wishes I was there. I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, but the whole, ‘the entire locker room hates him.’ All that stuff. Get the f**k out of here with that. That’s projection to the nth degree. ‘How are we going to hurt someone’s feelings? Everyone hates you!’ That’s f**king high school s**t.”
After living through an incredibly contentious situation where rumors were flying on a near-weekly basis from anonymous sources, it's worth wondering if Khan really would want Punk back in 2024, especially with new performers in the fray like Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay who are just as over with the core audience – take with that what you will – and are much easier to work with. If the point of AEW really is to have good matches and nothing else, then it's safe to say Okada, Ospreay, and noted mainstream star Mercedes Mone could probably replace Punk any day.
