10 Wrestling Matches Everybody Wanted (But Nobody Watched)
5. CM Punk Vs. MJF - AEW Dynamite, February 2, 2022
The Rampage debut, secondary market All Out '21 record, his Pro Wrestling Tees sales, the fact that he has added tens of thousands of additional buys to the AEW PPV average since debuting for the promotion: CM Punk, objectively, is a draw.
And yet...
The first CM Punk Vs. MJF match was amazing and will likely remain forever underrated; the Revolution blow-off was so iconic, the promos so blistering and the overall storyline was so masterfully intricate that the 40 minute epic has faded in the memory.
CM Punk's selling was incredible. His struggle with the knee informed an inability to mount his usual offence, and he compounded this by dusting off the Pepsi Plunge for the first time in 17 years. This awesome spot allowed him to pop the crowd big, maintain the central thread of the match, and put MJF over for its failure to put him away. The wrestler-crawls-to-make-a-pin spot is usually a carny means of engineering a near-fall while protecting their finish, but in Punk's genius hands, it was art. It might well be MJF's biggest accomplishment. He went the distance in there, rubbishing any b*llocks claims that he can't go. He was outstanding on the night.
There's no justice, and this can't be rationalised, but it sort of...failed.
On two fronts.
The Wintrust Arena failed to sell out with an only decent 5,446 punters. The announcement of a CM Punk dream match in Chicago failed to spark a late surge in sales. This was weird - consistent with AEW ticket sales pattern, yes, but you'd think a match with such online buzz would be the exception.
Also, every sub-demographic of 18-49 was down on the previous week, and while the match itself did grow the audience throughout, you'd surely have expected it to have performed better than a show headlined by the Acclaimed. The length of the match wasn't a factor; if anything, longer live TV matches draw better numbers. This is why you see so few video packages on Dynamite; they tank the ratings.
It doesn't render the programme a failure - the Dog Collar match was the driving force behind an amazing 170,000 buys - but perhaps fans sensed this wasn't the definitive climax.