When CM Punk made his AEW debut at the United Centre it was one of the greatest moments in Pro Wrestling history. Fans were in raptures, Punk was clearly moved by the response and it clearly boosted the ratings.

Since then Punk's star has inevitably waned and there's this feeling that he's just another guy just happy to come to work. It reminds me of the criticism the WWE received when Daniel Bryan came out of retirement and was working weekly televisions pretty much right away eroding a lot of the attraction a Daniel Bryan match would have.

It's certainly created some healthy discussion so I'm curious - would you have started CM Punk out hotter and had him challenge a Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, Cody Rhodes etc. or are you completely happy with how it's gone down?

When CM Punk debuted, I said it was a testament to AEW and how they've been able to gain the trust of the wrestling fraternity. I also think the way he's been used is a testament to how the table has been set in AEW and how booking Punk in a compelling angle right off the bat just wouldn't make sense. Punk has this perception of a vigilante, somebody who isn't afraid to speak his mind and put somebody in their place when they've gotten too big for their britches. In AEW there is nothing to rebel against inside the company since the whole promotion is an active rebellion of the WWE.

So the table really wasn't set for Punk to make an impact. On top of that, AEW is structured in such a way where about eight acts receive equal coverage and nothing is allowed to dominate the show like in years gone by. Instead of CM Punk changing the entire dynamic of the show, he was just slotted into that main cast of characters where he got to work all the secondary guys.

While there's larger discussions to be had about the format, I'm glad they haven't put all their eggs into the Punk basket. I'm happy to see Punk immersed in the AEW roster and he isn't just working guys like Christian Cage, Cody Rhodes, Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho etc. guys he could have faced in the WWE. I'm also glad he's resisted the urge of being a nostalgia act and pretending like it's 2013, acting grumpy and being rebellious for the sake of it. I'm also glad he's largely avoided the TNA route and while he did make references to the WWE he hasn't made his entire run about how you're finally getting the serious CM Punk. If anything he's having fun and fans are enjoying it.

I'd honestly say I've largely been happy with his run, the only complaint I really have is his opponents. I like the choices of working guys like Will Hobbes and Daniel Garcia the issue is that these guys are largely just job guys who haven't been featured on television enough to mean anything. Again I think AEW falls into the same habits of the WWE where only so many acts actually matter and the rest get barely any chance to shine. Even when they do it's usually just so they can be beaten by the featured talent.

I do think things have picked up in recent times. Eddie is also a jobber but he's also one of the best promos in the biz so he can make you forget about all that. Meanwhile the MJF feud was one fans wanted and they picked the right moment to go to it. I just hope they don't drag it out for months, I hope it's something that gets resolved in the coming weeks.

I'm trying to picture an alternate scenario where you go all-in on Punk. The United Centre segment happens but instead of Darby, Punk calls out MJF who is hot coming off the Jericho program. Punk beats him (LOL) and instead of Danielson closing the show it's CM Punk. CM Punk's big Dynamite match is against Adam Cole who he beats (LOL) making it CM Punk vs. Kenny Omega at Full Gear. As an aside Hangman Page turns on the Dark Order to rejoin the Elite at Full Gear just in time to lead them after Punk defeats Omega. Punk fends off Hangman, Danielson and Malakai Black before losing it to a returning Jon Moxley (or whatever new signing AEW makes).

Well, the alternative here would have been to book him like Vince has booked Edge since his return. I think that would have been difficult. For a start, it would have killed Punk as a babyface quickly because he'd look like a hypocrite, and the AEW fans wouldn't like someone coming in and going straight to the top, since that's a 'WWE thing' to do. This is where rankings also tie the booker's hands a little bit because it would have exposed that Punk was getting preferential treatment. Now, if you ask me, someone that has drawn money like Punk reserves the right to jump Miro in the pecking order. But that is something that the average WWE fan would be more likely to accept than the average AEW fan. So I don't know if Tony Khan could have done that if he wanted.

I think a halfway house would have sufficed. Something meatier, against an MJF or something like that, right off the bat, would have been better. But it all comes back down to what Tony Khan wants to do. Does he want a product that attracts casual fans, lapsed fans, and improves ratings. Or he does he want to serve his core audience? Does he even know? Is he trying to both (which IMO you can't). The business strategy is muddled from a booking perspective.

CM Punk's first few weeks in AEW was fantastic. His return segment was obviously incredible, and his next two or three segments after that were perfect.

The choice of his first feud was also perfect. Darby Allin. They planted the seeds before Punk arrived and I'm glad they delivered immediately. The only doubt was the quality of the match, but Punk was clearly up to the task and delivered one of the best matches in company history.

The only other valid choice for Punk's first opponent would have been MJF, which would have been just as good, but the approach they took gives them a hook into the MJF/Punk feud, that being Punk deliberately ignoring MJF. Jungle Boy is another candidate but despite being one of the pillars he doesn't have the same star quality as Darby, and although he is over and a solid worker, I can't imagine it being particularly effective as Punk's first match back.

After Darby, Punk went into a feud with Team Taz, which felt thrown together and ended right after Punk beat Hobbs. I'm not sure why this happened. Was the intention to build to Punk vs Starks (a great idea) but maybe Starks got injured? (he hasn't wrestled for a long time) If that's the case, that's unfortunate but not a booking problem.

Then we had some exhibition matches against Garcia, Fish, Kingston etc. These were fine and establish Punk as a regular and credible wrestler. Of course Punk lost a lot of his appeal as an attraction but in my view that was always going to happen once he got into the swing of things.

The alternative is to book him as a special attraction, similar to MJF. Punk beats Darby, doesn't wrestle a single match - or maybe just the Kingston match - until the MJF feud. Have him keep himself relevant by cutting promos every week. However it's hard to say if this would have had a positive impact as the audience could easily cool down on Punk cutting similar promos every week instead of getting his hands dirty.

Hard to say. Overall I think they've generally booked Punk well, and they struck while the iron is hot with regards to the MJF feud. Let's just not do another Labours of Hercules angle please.

Have him keep himself relevant by cutting promos every week.

The other approach would be to book Punk like Lesnar where he only appears when necessary while the show constantly references him and plays packages of whatever segment he was involved in.

Or he does he want to serve his core audience? Does he even know? Is he trying to both (which IMO you can't). The business strategy is muddled from a booking perspective.

That's a really good series of questions.

He's serving his core audience which is namely himself. TK is a passionate fan of Pro Wrestling who even posted on message boards back in the day. He saw a business opportunity in independant wrestling and he invested in it to play booker. TK gives off the impression that he puts in all the work but honestly watching the show it's apparent he defers the creative to the talent and he just provides suggestions or vetoes ideas because he promised certain talents for other programs. This idea that TK handles everything like he's Monty Burns and Smithers running the power-plant is ridiculous - I'd really love to know how many episodes of Dark he edited after The Acclaimed incident especially with his duties at Fulham and the Jaguars.

TK understands the audience so he caters to it and books the safest program imagineable. I think it's a case of so far so good and while he'd like to grow the audience he isn't willing to rock the boat. It's a sensible approach but at the same time the audience has barely grown despite some considerable investment.

If he's here to give people the rub, it's not his place to give jobbers the rub. The rub, the exposure, the time would be better utilised having him work upper card talents like either Buck, Adam Cole, FTR, Cody, Black, Pac, Almas - to generate interest in the product and put some credibility behind these names, these a potential main event talents. I mean... most of his matches are on Rampage... more people are watching NXT 2.0 than Rampage.

And he's wrestling jobbers. Case in point, that time could have been used to elevate Kingston. But, ​it's 'monster of the week' type booking. A promo or two, a match. Then move on.

A program like Punk v Kingston could have ran for months without either man touching each other, on purely promo work alone. The potential for these gentlemen to talk and banter and insult each other could have been enormous. We talk about " Punk v MJF talking people into the arena " this week.. but the golden opportunity was missed with Eddie, and Moxley any playiny all these guys to their strengths without actually wrestling a match. Historically, Punk, Mox and Eddie all come from nothing with differing levels of success. This could have been magic.

I'd suggest, he'll work MJF at WIC and a week later, he's cutting a promo on the next guy.

To me, every time you book Punk and against someone outside of the top guys, there's a trade-off. You lose a bit of Punk's lustre and the trade is that you elevate a lesser talent. This worked when they did it with Eddie Kingston because there was a story and it was well built up. Eddie Kingston is now a bigger deal for having worked Punk, despite losing. But Will Hobbs and Lee Moriarty and even Darby Allin I would argue, these guys as nath alluded to were finished with Punk so quickly that they weren't elevated. And so if you can't elevate them with it, why book it? Save Punk for something that matters (Kingston, MJF).

The difficulty for Tony Khan is that there is an expectation within the core fanbase that this type of booking won't take place, for better or worse. As a viewer, I don't mind to see this type of booking because Punk is still good at wrestling and he's a big star, but from a business perspective I would definitely argue that the shine came off Punk too quickly.

3/10 but not really AEW’s fault

Was the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in years, then after his match with Darby Allin no one outside of hardcore fans were talking about it.

Feels like Bret Hart in WCW 2.0, which sucks as I was as hyped as anyone for his return and now I don’t care enough to tune in.

He brought a unique style to the WWE that almost no else was doing, left and in doing so open the door to all the people doing the same style that you’d never really see beforehand on Major televised promotions.

Now everyone has been doing that style for years in WWE/AEW
and doing better than Punk so it’s not as exciting.

What was so unique about Punk? I don't get this talking point.

Dec 2, 2021 16:40:14 GMT System said:

Was the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in years, then after his match with Darby Allin no one outside of hardcore fans were talking about it.

Nobody outside of hardcore fans was ever going to talk about CM Punk for long.

Call me cynical, but wrestling is never going to become super mainstream again. Wrestling fans like wrestling, nobody else gives a damn. CM Punk won't change that no matter how well he is booked. Nobody else will change that.

Nope, I don't think they used him well. If you booked him the exact same way as Bryan I would say it would be a lot better. MJF is right why is he having competitive match with everyone. Pick one or two to elevate and have him beat the others in short matches.

But if they wanted to challenge WWE I would have put the title on him right away. Go on talk shows to tell all the fans who don't know of AEW that he is back and champion. Let Omega get his surgeries. And once he ready to come back let him win it back.

Dec 2, 2021 18:19:15 GMT Emperor said:

Dec 2, 2021 16:40:14 GMT System said:

Was the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in years, then after his match with Darby Allin no one outside of hardcore fans were talking about it.

Nobody outside of hardcore fans was ever going to talk about CM Punk for long.

Call me cynical, but wrestling is never going to become super mainstream again. Wrestling fans like wrestling, nobody else gives a damn. CM Punk won't change that no matter how well he is booked. Nobody else will change that.

I think sooner or later it will explode again, but be so different from today's wrestling most of us will hate it much like how different the attitude era and superstar era were.   I can see the market for though for a fucking bloodbath street fight fed going mainstream, a small zoomers flying around on bouncy things breaking through and a pure soap opera / drama that has a little bit of wrestling in it blow up.  

And really all wrestling would need to explode again is for someone like Amouranth or PewDiePie to wrestle now.  

It would make no sense for Punk to just come in and steamroll everyone when he hasn't had a match in seven years. Punk himself has said he wants his matches to feel more like a fight, he had that whole post-match promo after beating Kingston about getting back in the groove and remembering "Who the fuck I am." I've really liked Punk's booking so far.

Dec 2, 2021 18:19:15 GMT Emperor said:

Dec 2, 2021 16:40:14 GMT System said:

Was the biggest thing to happen in wrestling in years, then after his match with Darby Allin no one outside of hardcore fans were talking about it.

Nobody outside of hardcore fans was ever going to talk about CM Punk for long.

Call me cynical, but wrestling is never going to become super mainstream again. Wrestling fans like wrestling, nobody else gives a damn. CM Punk won't change that no matter how well he is booked. Nobody else will change that.

Quoting this for emphasis.

I know a handful of people that watched wrestling at least semi regularly when Punk was at his peak in WWE. They all stopped watching in the years after he quit. When he made his return in AEW, I think maybe half of them watched it then never watched another episode, and the others didn’t even care enough to watch it.

It’s the same with anything. If you’re a hockey fan you’re going to watch a big match between two rival teams, or the return game of a really good player, even if you don’t root for those teams or that player. But if you don’t watch hockey and just happen to catch that game because everyone was talking about it, you’re very likely not going to watch the next game and the next game and so on.

People seem to be forgetting this, that Danielson and Punk joining AEW was suddenly going to bring back the late 90’s. No. That was never going to happen.

ANYWAY question at hand… I’ve liked his booking outside the Team Taz thing. That’s my only complaint. He should have ran through each member, then won the FTW title from Starks. AEW wants that title to be legitimate but so far it’s just been a prop for Team Taz to carry around. Punk is the perfect guy to win an old ECW gimmick title too. He would have so much fun with it.

Other than that he’s been great. No complaints. I give it an 8/10.

CM Punk is past his best before date and doesn't fit the "awesome wrestling' shtick AEW presents. He's old and washed up and beyond the darby Allin bit, I actively avoid watching him on tv.

Seeing AEW shoehorn him onto tv every week... omg look CM Punk is on commentary... is so not organic, and I'd rather them just focus on the awesome roster they have instead of finding a lame non organic reason to work him onto tv every week

I'm over him

I'd rather wtach Hobbs vs Dante Martin tha anything to do with CM Punk

Dec 2, 2021 21:19:33 GMT KITN said:

It would make no sense for Punk to just come in and steamroll everyone when he hasn't had a match in seven years. Punk himself has said he wants his matches to feel more like a fight, he had that whole post-match promo after beating Kingston about getting back in the groove and remembering "Who the fuck I am." I've really liked Punk's booking so far.

But if we compare to something like boxing. CM Punk is an all-time great, or a modern great at the very least. If Floyd Mayweather left boxing for seven years, he doesn't come back with a warm-up against some jobber no one has ever heard of. He fights somebody relevant that instantly capitalises on his star power. Same in the UFC, if McGregor left for seven years, and came back, he'd fight a top 5 guy. So why should wrestling, a sport the whole population knows is pre-determined, be any more stringent than real-life fighting? It just seems like poor business to me.

I'd rather wtach Hobbs vs Dante Martin tha anything to do with CM Punk

Well, why not both? But absolutely they should book a division made up of talent like Lio Rush, Dante Martin, Jungle Boy, Powerhouse Hobbs, Ricky Starks, Lee Moriarty, Daniel Garcia, Sammy Guevara, Kip Sabien etc. and just let them tear it up. I really don't know why they don't do more stuff like that, especially since when the younger talents are paired off it usually results in quality work (MJF/Jungle Boy, Acclaimed/Martin & Rush etc.).

Just thought I'd mention I'm loving nazzer burying everything in every thread today. :lol:

Dec 3, 2021 6:43:33 GMT nazzer said:

CM Punk is past his best before date and doesn't fit the "awesome wrestling' shtick AEW presents. He's old and washed up and beyond the darby Allin bit, I actively avoid watching him on tv.

Seeing AEW shoehorn him onto tv every week... omg look CM Punk is on commentary... is so not organic, and I'd rather them just focus on the awesome roster they have instead of finding a lame non organic reason to work him onto tv every week

I'm over him

I'd rather wtach Hobbs vs Dante Martin tha anything to do with CM Punk

I actually surprised I don't see more of this because this was the orginal goal. Before they started wanting to one up WWE.

AEW was suppose to be a place were guys who weren't given a chance to shine get their chance.

I liked CM Punks matches there so far but they don't match the pace of the show.

Punk's AEW run hasn't been perfect but, I prefer it to him winning a title just because he's a star from 7 years ago. That wouldn't be organic to me.