The Self-Destruction Of CM Punk In AEW | Wrestling Timelines

June 17, 2023 - The Comeback Promo

CM Punk opens the premiere episode of Collision with an excellent and predictably controversial promo.

Without naming any individual members of the Elite, he says your favourite wrestlers are soft. You get it, though. He also implies that he is primarily responsible for any future rights fee AEW might receive, referring to himself as ‘One Bill Phil’. In the best and most scrutinised line, Punk says “I am the one true genuine article in a business full of counterfeit Bucks”.

Punk is pleased with himself with this one, but is he sending a message through his aesthetic and demeanour otherwise? His head is shaven. He looks meaner and more surly than he has in years, reverting to the look he wore when at his most snarky, paired with Paul Heyman in WWE.

The Young Bucks address Punk’s promo, updating their Twitter bio to read “If this were still 2018, we’d already have a ‘Counterfeit Bucks’ shirt available on PWT. Kill it y’all!”

Now, this is editorialising in the extreme, but there’s always subtext to examine in a saga as compelling as this. Are the Bucks saying that they don’t even want to make t-shirt money indirectly generated by Punk’s name, much less work an actual programme with him?

The early run of Collision, over which Punk is said to hold significant influence, is well-received. The pacing is more deliberate. People get a nostalgic kick out of the WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event-inspired intro promos. The matches are very long, but distinct from the party fare on Wednesdays. Collision is a WCW Saturday Night-coded, meat-and-potatoes show that goes down well with a section of the audience burned out by the frenzied stylings of Dynamite.