In this WrestleTalk News, CM Punk removed from the AEW game, MJF reveals his friction
with Tony Khan, all the fallout from Full Gear and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
Because for every new subscriber, New Japan champion Jay White will play the bongos
in celebration.
It’s just two days after a great AEW pay-per-view, which can only mean one thing: let’s talk
about how CM Punk’s attitude is affecting the company.
After AEW’s last pay-per-view at the start of September, All Out, Punk buried the company
and many of his fellow wrestlers in the post-show media scrum due to various frustrations.
This led to a backstage fight between him and members of the Elite.
Everyone was suspended for about a month while AEW investigated what happened and it appears
they found in favour of the Elite’s side.
Those findings are probably even clearer in the weekend’s events, where the Elite made
their AEW return at the pay-per-view, and CM Punk is even more gone than he was before.
Despite the controversial backstage clash, CM Punk has continued to be featured on most
weeks of AEW TV - because he’s front and center of the graphic promoting their upcoming
video game release Fight Forever.
Video games, with their lengthy development times, are notoriously difficult to keep up
to date with the onscreen wrestling product.
Just ask WWE 2K22, where half its roster had been released by the time the game came out.
But now in the first gameplay trailer that was made live over the weekend, CM Punk is
nowhere to be seen - with the game instead focusing on promo clips with Jon Moxley, Hangman
Page, Chris Jericho and Britt Baker.
Additionally, the cover art no longer features Punk.
Originally the game was due for release this year, but the new marketing says it will come
out in 2023 instead.
Perhaps this is due to the fall out of the CM Punk situation.
Do you think the game will be less successful without CM Punk on the cover?
Let me know in the comments.
You could have The Ass Boys on the cover, for all I care.
I am buying the crap out of that game.
But don’t read too much into this, because according to Tony Khan, nothing of what AEW
is doing right now is Punk related.
In the media scrum that followed Saturday’s Full Gear show, Wrestling Inc’s Nick Hausman
- who, let’s not forget, caused all this in the first place by asking Punk the starting
question.
IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT NICK! - asked Tony Khan whether he brought Colt Cabana back as a message
to CM Punk…
Cabana and Punk’s personal fall out is really the inciting incident of the whole situation.
They used to be best friends, but fell out during the legal case former WWE doctor Chris
Amann brought against Punk’s allegations on Colt’s podcast back in 2014.
So when Punk joining AEW coincided with Cabana being used less and less, and then eventually
being moved to the Ring of Honor brand, the rumour and speculation was that Punk had demanded
Cabana be removed from the locker room.
It was that rumour that had made Punk so annoyed, which fuelled his All Out bitchbomb.
One of AEW’s first actions after their investigation was seemingly complete was to bring Cabana
back to Dynamite to wrestle against Chris Jericho in a ROH World Title match.
It seemed like an announcement declaring that Punk really is done with AEW.
But according to Khan, it was nothing of the sort.
“...he's undefeated.
He's won both his matches [in ROH] and I thought he'd be a very logical challenger for Chris.
He's a compelling baby face, someone the crowd gets behind, and a really good wrestler, and
I thought it would be a really good match, and I thought it was a really good match."
Meanwhile, FTR are there like, rankings systems actually mean something?!
So Cabana was brought into wrestle Jericho purely because he had won two matches in ROH
this year.
Even though Jericho’s initial concept was against former ROH World Champions only, which
was broadened to former tag champions to work Cabana’s name in.
It has nothing to do with the Punk situation.
And neither, apparently, was The Elite’s new theme.
Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks made their triumphant return to AEW at Full Gear, in
a losing Trios Championship effort against Death Triangle.
Don’t worry if you missed it, you’ll get another six chances to see it in their suddenly
announced best of 7 series!
I’m actually really looking forward to it.
Their awesome entrance saw them use new theme music for the faction: Carry on Wayward Son
by 1970s rock band Kansas.
And with lyrics like ‘Masquerading as a man with a reason’ and ‘My charade is
the event of the season’, some have speculated it could be a shot at the Voice of the Voiceless.
Dave Meltzer has pointed out that, in this case, the Punk speculation really does seem
to be jumping to conclusions.
Not only are they and their dad “big fans of that song” [QUOTE], but they “actually
used that song as their entrance music when they did their own backyard wrestling as teenagers.”
The faction will use the track as their trios entrance music going forward.
They will continue to use their old music for tags or singles matches.
The Bucks have also announced that their YouTube show Being the Elite will return today!
That didn’t stop Punk’s entrance music Cult of Personality trending on Twitter over
the weekend, though.
But this one is actually definitely a genuine coincidence.
The AMC series The Walking Dead used the song in their series 11 finale last night to lure
out zombies in one scene.
He’s a clip: Even though Full Gear lacked the drawing power
of CM Punk, the Wrestling Observer is reporting the buyrate “looks to be similar to All
Out” - which was 140,000 buys.
While that’s below last year’s 155,000 for Full Gear, it’s far beyond the 90-100,000
range it got in years before, and should be considered a big success given all the backstage
turmoil and scrapped creative.
Everything sure does seem to be returning to normal for AEW.
Which also means backstage frustrations!
Following his victory over Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy Jack Perry took a shot at Austin Gunn,
tweeting: “I don’t know… I think I prefer being booked on the PPVs.”
A bit of friendly banter, which Colten Gunn then took to either shoot shoot or worked
shoot territory: “i guess if we changed with the bucks and
stayed up until 6 am with the boss we could get a spot too”
A somewhat hypocritical stance considering The Ass Boys most likely have their spots
because of their father, Daddy Ass.
In a potential hint that this is more than just a bit of Twitter working of those marks,
FTR’s Dax Harwood - a wrestler the Gunns are actively feuding with right now - liked
the post.
In kayfabe terms, however, AEW is facing its biggest existential threat so far: having
their world champion threatening to leave for WWE.
MJF turned even more heel in the Full Gear main event, which saw William Regal betray
Jon Moxley and help Max to win the World Championship with the brass knucks.
According to the Wrestling Observer, the finish was booked by Tony Khan himself, where the
seeds had been planted in the last several weeks of TV.
Like Regal and Max’s first promo segment together, and MJF conveniently not showing
up after The Firm’s beatdown.
However, Tony’s wasn’t the only idea, as “several of the most influential wrestlers”
had their own ideas on how to do the heel turn.
MJF’s full appearance on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast went live over the
weekend.
Previously, we’d only had a three minute promo excerpt from it on an episode of Dynamite.
And in it, Max spoke how about how his post-Double or Nothing pipebomb came about.
“Me and [Tony Khan] had a little bit of friction.
I was not getting compensated what I should've been compensated at one point... so I quit
on the air…
I told him the things that I was gonna say, and then I said a lot more than I told him
I was gonna say!"
It’s a merging of real life and wrestling storyline that is making MJF’s character
so exciting.
Everyone involved maintains Max’s contract will expire on the 1st January, 2024 - which
sets a countdown timer ticking on his AEW World Title reign.
WWE is the obvious teased place for him to go, but again speaking on Pardon My Take,
he said he could just go to Hollywood, given him currently filming the Zac Efrom movie
about the Von Erich family.
Now watch on to see the AEW crowd turn on CM Punk!
And remember to subscribe for Jay White’s bongos.