10 Biggest Unsolved AEW Mysteries
5. How Was The Rebooted MJF Vs. CM Punk Feud Going To Play Out?
The CM Punk Vs. MJF feud was an all-timer of the medium.
It started when a mischievous Punk rejected MJF's handshake. He did this to bruise MJF's ego - Punk also, deftly, didn't put MJF over alongside Darby Allin and Ricky Starks to foreshadow the theme of rejection - but he didn't reckon with the extent to which he would be effective. MJF revealed that he entered pro wrestling, as a shoot, when seeing a picture of Punk shaking hands with Daniel Bryan at the 2011 Royal Rumble. This evoked something awful within MJF, deepening his feelings of rejection, adding almost unparalleled heft to the story of parasocial relationships and the blood-soaked heat angle and PPV blow-off reckoning that followed.
Though it was concluded at Revolution '22, that was merely the first chapter. MJF vowed revenge, threatening to hand Punk the most humiliating loss of his career at some uncertain point in the future.
It never happened - MJF returned the night that Punk blew up the promotion, and both wrestlers only briefly overlapped in AEW when Punk was on Collision Island - but, whisper it, was it going to be a disappointment?
MJF assembled the Firm on the same night that he sauntered to the ring in a Devil mask after, luckily for him, nobody grabbed the poker chip to become #1 contender to the World title first.
After that questionable logic, yet another AEW gauntlet storyline was threatened - and this was before Tony Khan cooled off on the device.
Maybe Brawl Out was for the best...