When CM Punk announced that he'd be stopping at SmackDown, NXT, and RAW before making his free agent decision, it felt like a technicality.

Punk made his return on RAW, had the most built-in feuds with performers on RAW, and, after Randy Orton signed with SmackDown, it felt like overkill to add another main eventer to the same brand, especially considering the Red Brand is still looking for a new media rights contracts that having the “Best in the World” could bolster.

After stopping by SmackDown for an interesting promo that took a swipe at Kevin Owens as a proxy for AEW, Punk made a surprise – read: basically announced – appearance in NXT, where he squashed his beef with Shawn Michaels and was celebrated the performers in the back new and old who were eager to say hello.

Now, if that was that, then that would have been that, as Punk signed with RAW a few days later and will now serve as one of the faces of the brand moving forward, but as it turns out, the “Second City Saint” may not be finished with developmental after all, as, according to PW Insider, the 45-year-old spent the last two days at the Performance Center in Orlando, where he has found a welcoming audience among young upstarts who want to learn from the “Best in the World.”

“CM Punk is back at the WWE Performance Center today, training & holding court with NXT talents,” Wrestle Ops shared on social media. “There was a massive genuine excitement at the PC yesterday when Punk surprised everyone by showing up & spending the day with talents.”

For fans out of the know, there's been a rumor that CM Punk has been looking to take over for HBK in Orlando for some time now, since at least the “announcement” that he'd be making an appearance at Deadline on Saturday. Still, while it's hard to imagine WWE would be willing to pay Punk all of that money to simply train young upstarts in NXT, as they're likely hoping to get at least a few marquee matches and maybe a headling spot at WrestleMania 40 out of their investment, hey, who knows, if his AEW run is of any indication, the “Best in the World” really might not be an appropriate moniker for his in-ring efforts anymore, as his match against “Hangman” Adam Page proved. If Punk decides he wants to be a part of WWE indefinitely, holding court over a collection of young performers eager for his advice might just be a viable path moving forward, especially if The CW wants an on-screen authority figure in a few years' time.

CM Punk's best friend, Ace Steel, talks coaching at the PC.

While CM Punk doesn't have any experience coaching at the Performance Center, as the campus was christened after he left the promotion, his best friend and trainer, Ace Steel, does, as he worked at the PC in Orlando from 2019-22.

Discussing his experience working in Orlando in an interview with Rip Rodgers, Steel noted that he enjoyed the experience and enjoyed helping to coach up the next generation of WWE Superstars even more.

“Some. Some. There are still some that hang onto that. Percentage-wise, I really can't throw that at you because every place is different. I coached at the PC a couple of years ago, it's been about a year. You had a lot of sponges. I had a group of… I was blessed to have… I had some newbies, and then I was gifted a lot of guys who had been working a long time. They had an idea of who the h*ll I was versus a football player who had no clue that I had experience who ‘That's my coach' and I was coach Guy. To these guys, I'm Ace Steel because they came from the independents, and those guys were an open book,” Ace Steel said via Fightful.

“Still, to this day, I'll comment to them or will reach out, ‘Hey, that was a great match.' I'll see a guy debut on SmackDown and kill it. They'll throw praise right back. ‘Hey, coach, thanks for helping me out along the way.' They come, they ask, they want to know. Those are the true workers. They do exist. They do exist. It's just… something happened to our art, and I hope we can rectify it. You can't change the world, but there are some good nuggets out there.”

Has Punk been talking to Steel about his experience in Orlando? Could the duo work together to forge a one-two punch in the PC the likes of which the duo tried to carve out in AEW? Fans will have to keep an eye on this story in order to find out.