10 AEW Stars Who Have Gone AWOL

2. CM Punk

Abadon AEW
AEW

He's as good as gone, if last night's Dynamite is any indication - but technically and officially, he is still a member of the AEW roster.

You know the story: during the All Out '22 press conference, CM Punk volunteered out of absolute thin air that he had "f*ck all" to do with Colt Cabana's mysterious disappearance from AEW and that he doesn't care where he works or if he works. He simply wants nothing to do with Scott Colten.

Which is interesting, since Colt wasn't brought to TV despite doubling as a producer of AEW TV and being "exclusive to ROH" when ROH Rampage at this point is a more accurate name for the weekly Friday show than AEW Rampage. Tony Khan more than anyone knew that Colt's vanishing had created huge unrest in the locker room, and yet didn't pacify the pro-Colt camp by jobbing somebody out who exists to lose at this point in his career on a random episode of Elevation, which is the exclusive home of "beatable guys get beat to heat up guys set to appear in a bigger TV match imminently".

Now Punk has gone, Colt Cabana is back.

Applying Occam's razor to the situation flies in the face of Punk's conviction-drenched wrestling promo at the presser, but perhaps that's all it was. Nobody knows for sure, even if Dave Meltzer just said or heavily implied on Observer Radio that the story of Punk wanting Colt gone was "true from the start".

The only thing we know is that Punk, officially, is AWOL.

 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!