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CM Punk Brings Plenty of Baggage—and Eyeballs—to WWE With His Shocking Return
I was watching Survivor Series 2023 with my friend Mark, and when the main event ended, and all the babyfaces were celebrating their WarGames win, and WWE put the graphic up on the screen indicating the show was over, we both remarked that it was a pretty by-the-numbers Survivor Series. Two very good WarGames matches, three short matches in the middle that may as well have aired on Raw or Smackdown, and a basic three-hour run time. Mark noted that there weren’t even any surprises. I said, “Well, Randy Orton came back.” He noted that wasn’t really much of a surprise, given it had been advertised in advance. He said his favorite PPV was the Royal Rumble, because no matter what happened, you were always guaranteed at least one surprise or another.
And then, suddenly, boy, did we ever get a big surprise.
CM Punk returned at the end of the show, having signed a multiyear contract with the company that he had walked out of a decade earlier. At the time, despite the “never say never” saying that we always hear in wrestling, I was certain he would never come back. He had nothing but terrible things to say about the company. He told people that he would consider it a personal failing if he ever came back. He was embroiled for years in a defamation lawsuit with WWE doctor Christopher Amann that—although he won—cost him an incredible amount of money in legal fees and his longtime friendship with Colt Cabana, and then a second lawsuit with Cabana, all built around a podcast the two did where Punk discussed his time in WWE and reasons for leaving. He had also told Paul “Triple H” Levesque in their final meeting, regarding having a match with him at WrestleMania: “I do not need to wrestle you. You need to wrestle me. I do not want to wrestle you.” Hunter, he said in the Cabana podcast, “never liked me. Me and him in a room together—it was always negative vibes.” Hunter (Levesque) just happens to be the guy in charge of WWE creative today.
And then there was his entire AEW run. He debuted in the worst-kept secret in wrestling on Aug. 20, 2021, and initially everything was great. The Rampage show at the United Center in Chicago was completely sold out, he got an all-time historic reaction, he got great reviews from talent backstage and he had a positive effect on business. But within a few months, things began to go south in a number of different ways. It would take a book to detail everything, but in short, there was a great deal of backstage drama involving Punk, “Hangman” Adam Page and AEW executive vice presidents the Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson). It came to a head in a legitimate backstage fight at the Sept. 4, 2022, All Out PPV, everyone directly involved in the fight was either suspended for months or fired. Punk was injured and when he was healthy again he returned to a company that had seen morale plummet as a result of all the drama. With none of it actually resolved, it led to another fight with Jack Perry at All In at Wembley Stadium three months ago, and afterward a confrontation with AEW president and CEO Tony Khan that Khan claimed led to him “fearing for his life,” and ultimately firing Punk.
So it was far from a foregone conclusion that he would ever work in wrestling again. He made huge money in WWE and he made huge money in AEW and there was nobody else in wrestling that would be able to pay that kind of money, so unless he was willing to take a pay cut or go back to WWE, it appeared his time in wrestling was likely over.
But there were weird hints. A few lines popped up during promos on WWE TV that Punk had used in different interviews over the years, and it happened frequently enough to rule out coincidence. Shinsuke Nakamura started cutting promos on a mysterious, unnamed person, and for two weeks used Punk’s finisher, the GTS, to lay people out. Exactly who knew what isn’t clear at this point, but Levesque claimed at the postshow press conference that the deal had come together very quickly, approximately 10 days prior, and the only two people involved in the negotiations were himself and WWE CEO Nick Khan (no relation to Tony). Vince McMahon had no say in the decision, higher-ups in the new TKO parent company were unaware and none (or at least the vast, vast majority) of the wrestlers were told anything until shortly before they went through the curtain for the main event at Survivor Series.
Although nobody will say so publicly, there were people in WWE unhappy with the decision, believing that Punk carried a ton of baggage and wasn’t somebody the company needed, given that it is at its hottest point since the Monday Night Wars in the late ’90s, not to mention he’d been fired from his previous employer for unprofessional conduct and going after his boss. Others argued that, well, it was AEW, he clearly didn’t respect anyone there and felt he was by far the biggest star, and that things will be different in WWE where he’ll know they won’t tolerate any bad behavior. Of course, he’s been in WWE before. and his last run there also ended in disaster. Interestingly, morale might have been even worse in AEW, with a lot of wrestlers upset about the optics of Punk moving from AEW to WWE, feeling it made AEW look even more like a minor league, and others disappointed that after all the damage he did to their company, he was rewarded by walking right onto WWE TV and securing a massive multiyear deal.
His appearance was by far the most talked-about thing on an otherwise very good but hardly noteworthy Survivor Series. The team of Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair and Shotzi won the Women’s WarGames match over Damage CTRL in an excellent opener, albeit a match with weird reactions given they made the decision to give the babyfaces the advantage throughout the match. The backward psychology led to the heel team getting cheered every time they hit the ring to even the odds, and Asuka getting the biggest pop of the match when she was allowed to bring the tables into the ring during her entrance. The story was that Bayley did everything she could to prevent her team from losing, breaking up pins and taking the bullet for her partners, but eventually she was pinned. It will almost certainly lead to Damage CTRL turning on her and booting her out of the group, something that has been in the works since the spring.
In between the WarGames matches we had three matches that were fine to good, but no better than anything you’d see on Raw or Smackdown. Gunther beat The Miz to retain the intercontinental title in a very good match that was below Gunther standards but above Miz standards. Santos Escobar beat Dragon Lee in a good match that could have been great, but they got only eight minutes. And Rhea Ripley beat Zoey Stark in a good match to retain the women’s title. Neither title match finish was a surprise.
The men’s WarGames match was the best match on the show, as they did the psychology exactly right throughout the match. The heels had the advantage, and they beat down the babyfaces the entire period, leading to fans begging for a babyface to come in and even the odds. In a very clever deal, the story was that their fifth man, Randy Orton, never showed up at the building, so throughout the match you had fans chanting for both Randy and CM Punk. It seemed like a wildly stupid thing to book, but only if you presumed Punk wasn’t going to be there. Given he was making a surprise appearance at the end, setting it up for both Orton and Punk to get chants throughout the match was quite brilliant.
Orton returned, physically larger than ever coming off back surgery at age 43, and gave JD McDonagh an RKO after he was thrown off the side of the cage. But then, Cody Rhodes, whose father, Dusty, invented WarGames, pinned Damian Priest with the crossroads. On the surface that finish makes no sense, but the story is that The Judgment Day always claimed it had no leader, and Priest in recent weeks started claiming he was the leader, and he was appointed captain of the team, so in losing it also furthers the story line leading to Judgment Day turning on him and booting him out of the group. It was an excellent main event, followed immediately by the shocking return of Punk.
Punk’s first television appearance will be Monday night on Raw from Nashville. How long the honeymoon period lasts is anyone’s guess, but we should have answers as to where he’ll be heading story-line-wise by the time the show ends. In the short term, if AEW was any indication, he should boost business, both in terms of house show numbers and TV ratings. Long term, it is anyone’s guess, but most likely, as is the case with basically everyone including John Cena, once you’re a regular on TV every week your drawing power starts to drop down to the level of everyone else. The big question will be whether he can remain a team player in a promotion run by a former real-life rival who will be able to exert complete control over all aspects of his character and promotion.
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