CM Punk has been absent from All Elite Wrestling since capturing the AEW World Championship from Jon Moxley at last year’s All Out PPV due to both the injury he sustained during said match and the suspension he received following the ‘Braw Out’ incident in the aftermath of the post-show press conference. Speculation regarding his AEW future only grew further last week, as in a deleted Instagram story, Punk threw Moxley and Chris Jericho under the bus whilst debunking a rumour about himself and the former.
Wade Keller of PWTorch has now provided an insight into Punk’s standing with the AEW locker room during a recent episode of the Focus on AEW podcast, revealing that a large portion of the roster are against him returning to the company.
“The sentiment is he’s not welcome back. The wrestlers don’t want him back … the vast majority of wrestlers don’t want him back. Maybe one or two of the top third of the roster would want him back and then there’s some younger guys who liked him and just thought, ‘Hey, this is a guy I grew up watching and it’s cool having him around. But mostly there’s a range of peaceful coexistence and really liking each other, and Punk is the exception to that right now. So him going off on Instagram like he did really hurt the chances of him being welcome back.”
-Wade Keller
With prevalent rumours of heat with influential figures such as Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, and The Elite, one would struggle to see a world in which CM Punk is able to return to AEW without any issues, however he has hinted across his social media that he intends to make a comeback once he’s able to do so.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the future of CM Punk as soon as we hear more.
H/T WrestlingInc for the transcription
