Update on working plan for CM Punk’s AEW return

If CM Punk is to return to AEW, the working idea has been to use split crews that would tie into a rumored new Saturday night show with the former AEW World Champion as a featured star.

Dave Meltzer discussed the developments in this ever-changing situation in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Meltzer said no deal has been finalized for the show, nor the potential Turner network the show would be on. The original idea was a two-hour show “with equal the star power” of Dynamite. 

As of now, there is a lone Saturday, July 8th date for a “televised event” in Regina, Canada, with a start time of 7 PM Eastern.

Meltzer noted there would be cases like pay-per-views or special one-off events like AEW All In at London’s Wembley Stadium in which the split crews wouldn’t work for obvious reasons.

News has intensified this week of a potential Punk return around the time AEW returns to Chicago in late-June for the Forbidden Door go-home edition of Dynamite.

Meltzer noted Punk’s return is considered a “tenuous situation because the dressing room issues involving him have not been settled at all at press time.”

Some of those issues came to a head in the now-infamous post-All Out brawl that included Punk, Ace Steel, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks last September. Punk has not appeared on AEW programming since that event and has been rehabbing a torn triceps suffered that night against Jon Moxley.

According to a Friday Fightful report, Punk would like to work with The Elite (Omega and the Bucks) and has pushed for a meeting with them for some time. A meeting with Punk and Chris Jericho is also supposed to be happening at some point as well.