The Self-Destruction Of CM Punk In AEW | Wrestling Timelines
August 19, 2022 - The Seal Is Broken
After the Punk receipt on Dynamite, everybody starts leaking.
Stories have followed AEW around since day one. Some were leaked, and laughed at, like the story of Excalibur fighting Jimmy Havoc; others were whispered about, like the sudden and troubling departure of Kylie Rae. Overall, though, for a pro wrestling outfit supposedly run by a money mark who doesn’t know what he is doing, AEW was remarkably free of gossip. Since the industry subsists on rumour and innuendo, this was some feat.
Things have changed. Nobody knows who leaks what - Punk has an idea, but is strongly rebuffed by both the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer and Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp - but the company-defining drama is felt so deeply by all sides that many wrestlers want to get their versions out.
Dave Meltzer is very prescient; in the wake of the Coward Sh*t promo, when confirming it was a shoot and explaining the context, he remarks in the Observer Newsletter that “It feels like a number of people are close to their breaking point if things don’t get settled”.
Punk looked close to it on Dynamite. Usually, in all-babyface programmes, one wrestler is more snarky and aggressive. The heat must be drawn from somewhere. Punk however is in especially prickly, volatile form; he is scathing in his references to both Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. There’s a mischievous look in his eyes. He hasn’t yet detonated the pipebomb - but he’s cutting promos with a lit match in his hand.
Meltzer has no idea how correct he is. Meanwhile, Voices Of Wrestling claim that they’ve heard of Punk’s refusal to do a job for Page in the wake of the worker’s rights promo - Bret Hart mega-fan Punk is, allegedly, borrowing from the book of Shawn Michaels twice in the same year.
Overnight and for the next year, AEW becomes a sieve barely containing a deluge of intoxicating, contradictory information.