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Last September, his body still bruised following his reconquest of the All Elite Wrestling (AEW) championship, CM Punk was suspended by his boss, Tony Khan, in the wake of a backstage incident involving executive members of the organization. Executive Vice Presidents Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson, to name a few.
The incident was preceded by a turbulent press briefing during which CM Punk took potshots at several of his work colleagues and with barely veiled words at Tony Khan, sitting next to him.
This cavalier outing, coupled with a suspension and an injury, stains the reputation of the 44-year-old veteran.
Phil Brooks, his real name, has been sidelined from AEW for nine months. It was even believed that the differences were irreconcilable at certain moments of this controversy. The content of the remarks, the physical altercations, the unceremonious way in which he was removed from television programming, everything pointed to a contract buyout a year after his notable return to the world of sports entertainment.
But no, time fixes things and CM Punk, Saturday night, will be back on AEW television for the first edition of the new weekly live show: Collision. (on TSN in English)
In front of his fans in Chicago, Punk promised this week that he has a lot to say when he returns and he will do it all with an “unfiltered” microphone in our TVs.
Alongside this return, he spoke with Marc Raimondi of the ESPN network to perhaps make our mouths water… or moderate our expectations.
CM Punk, nine months later
“Wrestling is a business,” Brooks says at the outset in his first interview in almost a year. “For me, it’s a television show. I have been absent for you since my departure in September and now I am coming back. I’m going to pick up where I left off and you have to watch Saturday night to hear what I have to say. »
Officially, CM Punk has been out this whole time due to a torn muscle in his arm. The long rehabilitation hampered any attempts to return to action.
Unofficially, this long absence is also the result of a long dispute. Since his arrival at AEW, CM Punk has experienced friction with other wrestlers and other members of the executive. Two visions, two ways of seeing things and a lot of resentment.
The September incidents, under a seal of confidentiality imposed by the legal proceedings which followed, are the result of several months of turmoil and internal conflicts.
To promote a new show on which he will be the main headliner, Punk emphasizes in his interview with ESPN that he is not proud of the turn of events, but that essentially, he was only defend your beliefs. Faced with the inaction of his bosses, he took matters into his own hands, for better and for worse.
“The first thing I said to Tony (Khan) when we finally spoke,” he explains of his return, “was that I apologize for putting you in this position. »
It’s still easy to be skeptical of Punk’s sincerity. After all, there are precedents.
We remember that he left WWE by slamming the door and burning the bridges behind him more than eight years ago. This explosive release also brought with it his long-time friend, Colt Cabana, with whom CM Punk no longer maintains relations since the heated legal proceedings following their comments made during an episode of Cabana’s defunct podcast.
His nine-month absence from AEW seemed to chart the beginnings of another tumultuous divorce.
The swell is indeed present, but the divorce will wait.
CM Punk will have his theater to do his version of sports entertainment and the wrestlers he conflicts with will stay at Dynamite, away from his weekly Saturday night activities. History does not yet tell if AEW is shooting itself in the foot with this intangible boundary between its wrestlers.
For the moment, this is the state of affairs and it is a repentant CM Punk, despite his barely veiled bitterness, who is banging on the promotional drums of the organization in the heart of a particularly busy month of June with the launch of a new show and the presentation of a pay-per-view event in Toronto in association with New Japan Pro Wrestling (Forbidden DoorJune 25).
Failing to tell us the whole truth and nothing but the truth, CM Punk tells us a story a few hours before his big return to television.
The truth, as is often the case in the world of sports entertainment, will be well hidden until it becomes useful. It could, in particular, be used on television to fuel a story. Otherwise, in a few years, one of the actors in this sad vignette will have his tongue loosed to make people talk about him during a low moment in his career.
Who, when and how? Only the future will tell us. In the meantime, we have to take CM Punk at his word and watch what happens on television as he wishes.
“ When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. » -John Ford