CM Punk Is Back. Why Should You Care, and Where Do We Go From Here?
Source: All Elite Wrestling
First things first. Why is this an article about wrestling instead of Family Matters? To be honest, I always wanted to write about wrestling, but I considered the market cornered. At the time I started writing OUM (if you don’t know what that is, just skip to the next paragraph), there was a writer who I considered to be the Best in the World (sic), so I didn’t want to encroach on his territory. However, that writer has not written in over a year, so I figured, what the hell? Maybe I can stand on a corner near where he used to stand.
In 2011, WWE “Superstar”* CM Punk sat down crisscross applesauce and delivered what would come to be known as The Pipe Bomb, widely considered one of the greatest promos in the history of the wrestling business. In it, Punk skewered the company he worked for, criticizing them for their mistreatment of him and other wrestlers. He also told the world that his contract was ending the night after the next pay-per-view, on which he was challenging the company’s bestest boy, John Cena, for the WWE championship. Punk informed a captive audience that his intention was to leave the company with the title, an act that would embarrass the company’s Chairman and biggest on-screen villain, Vincent Kennedy McMahon.
*I wrote “superstar” in quotations because despite the fact that the middle W in WWE stands for “Wrestling,” Vince McMahon abhors when his performers use the word on television. He’s a carny who’s ashamed of being a carny, not to mention a millionaire who should be a billionaire.
That pay-per-view (Money in the Bank 2011) ended with CM Punk doing just that. He pinned John Cena (basically) cleanly in the middle of the ring, leapt into his hometown crowd of Chicago, Illinois, and blew McMahon a kiss as the screen faded to black. What made this storyline so interesting was the blurring of real life and the grey area that is professional wrestling. Punk’s contract actually did expire at midnight, and when he won the championship he had still yet to sign an extension. He tweeted a picture of the championship title belt inside of his refrigerator, and then vanished for a little over a week. WWE moved on with their ever-continuing storytelling, and started a tournament to crown a new champion. After a new champion (Cena, again) was crowned, Punk returned with new music (Cult of Personality by Living Colour) and the old belt and challenged Cena to see who the new champion would be. It was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tell six months to a year of amazing stories with two charismatic showmen in the prime of their careers.
Unsurprisingly to those who have watched WWE faithfully for decades, they botched The Summer of Punk. After another banger Punk/Cena match, they would convolute the whole storyline by involving aging NWO star Kevin Nash and “Money in the Bank” winner Alberto Del Rio (who, as it turns out, isn’t a great guy). SummerSlam ended with neither Cena or Punk as champion, and Punk moved into a storyline with Nash and Nash’s best friend, HHH. This was a catastrophe, punctuated by the bizarre choice to have HHH (McMahon’s real-life son-in-law) pin CM Punk clean at Night of Champions. WWE would eventually course-correct and give Punk a more than year-long championship reign, but the damage had been done.
Meanwhile, CM Punk’s health began to decline. As Punk himself later talked about on his (then) best friend Colt Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast, he had allegedly developed a staph infection that WWE’s medical team had incorrectly misdiagnosed as a fatty deposit. The doctor that treated him, Dr. Christopher Amann, later sued Punk and Cabana for defamation of character, but they were found innocent. An increasingly hurting Punk asked WWE for some time off, which they put off and put off until Punk, fed up with his situation and struggling with his mental and physical health, left the company in January 2014. WWE suspended him under breach of contract, and when they still couldn’t get him to return after the conclusion of the suspension, Punk was fired in June of 2014 (oh his wedding day, no less).
Okay, so now that I’ve caught you up on the facts that you almost certainly already know, let’s fast forward a little and discuss some more pertinent information that you also likely know. In May of 2019, a group of wrestlers known as “The Elite” put on a wrestling event that was remarkable in that the bookers of the show were the wrestlers themselves. It was a smashing success, and it caught the eye of Tony Khan, the son of Jacksonville Jaguars’ owner Shad Kahn (this is the last time in this article that Shad will be mentioned, so if you read the name Khan going forward, think Tony). Tony had long wanted to get into the wrestling business, and he saw in The Elite the opportunity to do so. Together they founded All Elite Wrestling, an alternative to WWE that would feature more creative freedoms for the performers. This too was a resounding success, and many of WWE’s roster left the company, eager to satisfy their artistic hunger. Among the notable defectors were Jon Moxley (formerly known as WWE’s Dean Ambrose) and the late Brodie Lee (Luke Harper).
It became almost as fun for wrestling fans to speculate on who was going to defect to AEW is it was to watch their shows. For all of its short tenure, CM Punk’s name was thrown around more than anyone’s (with the possible exception being Brian “Daniel Bryan” Danielson; the jury is still out on if he’ll show up). In a recent teleconference, Khan himself admitted that he had been trying to sign Punk for the entirety of AEW’s existence.
The success of AEW’s flagship two-hour program, “Dynamite” led to the desire for them to create more weekly content, so they created a second show to be called “Rampage,” and announced that they would air a special episode called “The First Dance” (a reference to the acclaimed Michael Jordan documentary, “The Last Dance”). TNT Champion Darby Allin was interviewed (along with his best friend, whose name escapes me at the moment) about this event, and told backstage reporter Alex Marvez that AEW is the place to prove that you’re the greatest of all time, “even if you think you’re the best in the world.” This, of course, is a thinly veiled reference to the Pipe Bomb, in which CM Punk calls himself that very thing. For the first time in seven years, it seemed obvious that CM Punk would be returning to the sport of professional wrestling.
Last Friday, on August 20, 2021, a sold-out crowd in Chicago witnessed that return. Coming out to his trademark Cult of Personality, CM Punk delivered what almost felt like a sermon, working the crowd in a way that few in the wrestling business can. He shit-talked WWE, hyped up a match with Darby Allin in September, and gave everyone in the arena ice cream bars.
What does this mean for the future? Well, for me, it’s a chance for a re-do of the “Summer of Punk” (the WWE one, not the Ring of Honor one [Hey Colt Cabana, how you doing?]), and this time, I actually trust the company I’m watching to do it well. With the exception of that match, AEW has done nothing but tell me good stories and subvert my expectations. Plus, CM Punk has always said that he wouldn’t come back without someone offering him a big bag of cash and creative storylines that piqued his interest, and Punk isn’t the kind of guy who doesn’t follow through with things he says he’ll do. I wouldn’t expect anything less than six months to a year of enthralling television. And that’s if he’s even half the man I think he is, which is to say, the best in the world.
(And while you’re at it, AEW, please re-do Punk vs. Jericho!)
