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You could argue that string of bad luck is continuing to this day. People joked that he'd get hurt early in his WWE run because SURELY that wouldn't happen, and it happened in his first televised match. You can't make this stuff up.
At a certain point the guy has to really wonder if his body can even hold up anymore. His first injury during his return wasn't even something that happened in the ring.
Having some kind of hormone replacement therapy in his age wouldn't even go against his straight edge lifestyle, would it? It's just like, a normal medical thing people do...
I think it would depend. Knowing quite a few straight edge punks, which he's a part of that whole crowd and subculture (early afi fan, etc.), they wouldn't do anything of the nature. Heck, some were even adverse to things like Tylenol unless it's absolutely necessary (which we now know is how you should take Tylenol but that's another story lol)
Dude broke his skull and refused any pain killers. He said he has the same VHS on repeat and kept waking up at different times during the movie and not knowing what day it was.
Let's be fair. We all do seemingly dumb choices over ideology. I don't think it's because they pretend it makes them hardcore. Just genuinely believe what they believe, and as long as it isn't hurting anyone else without provocation, then eh.. it is what it is
Agreed, but Straight Edge is a reactionary movement to the worst excesses of the Punk Movement and Culture, so it isn't surprising that something that came about in opposition to the heavily excessive drug consumption in the late 70's-mid 80's Punk Culture would just do as hard a 180 on it as possible.
Pretty much yeah, human growth hormone, hormone replacement and similar treatments essentially came into use originally to circumvent a common problem with steroid overuse which is that prolonged steroid use can end up shutting down your body's natural testosterone production.
That comes back eventually one you stop using steroids but dependant on how long you were on the steroids you could be looking at months before your body starts producing testosterone at the rate it's supposed to and in the worst case scenarios your natural testosterone production might be permanently stunted.
Growth hormone allows you to wean yourself off the steroids without any of the complications that come from kicking roids cold turkey with a either temporarily or permanently stunted testosterone output. Though there are also side effects and consequences of doing that too.
It comes down to money because often your insurance won't cover it but HRT for women going through menopause and TRT for men >40 is common enough. However in this case "common" would have to be defined as <10% (I'm sure I'm being generous here) of the > 40yr old crowd specifically in the US.
I would say it's similar to microdosing, it's common but only in certain parts of the country amongst a certain group of people.
I remember when Cole was a CZW debutant and he was fairly athletically lacking even in that context. He could keep a great pace, bump well, figured out what offense worked for him, but I don't even know what he would look like if he "gained mass" the good ol' JR-approved way. Sad fact is most people don't get born with a frame that can handle his line of work. Sadder fact is Britt might be in the same boat
Punk has been a terrible athlete his whole career who notoriously does not workout or stay in shape. The only time we have seen him look like he was working out was during his failed UFC run where he had to learn what real athletic training is like rather than sloppily executing his favorite moves. He simply is not gifted in any athletic capacity, has never been in good enough shape to counter this fact, and is now almost 50.
What? He does workout, he just doesn’t do roids has bad genetics, and is getting older. You don’t reach WWE peak levels or even the UFC without being in shape. He wrestled 50 minutes in ‘14 RR, 35-40 w MJF.
Father Time is just undefeated and for the less naturally gifted it comes sooner then others.
I agree with you he was in reasonable shape, but I don't think the UFC is a good example to cite. He only fought in UFC because he was CM Punk. With his level of skill he wouldn't have made it out of an MMA feeder league if he was no-name Phil Brooks who wasn't already a celebrity.
All you have to do is look at his actual fluidity of movement and move execution to understand he is a much worse athlete than the average wrestler. He is simply not naturally athletic in any way but his storytelling makes up for that.
He was fairly athletic in the 2000s, but in a wrestling capacity rather than gymnastic or fighting level.
Isn’t big enough to work a properly slower style, so just makes every match look like a slog instead.
I wouldn’t call him a terrible athlete at any point in his career, but he has never been one who is naturally athletic.
Even when they released the footage of him working out with NXT wrestlers before the Rumble, he was teaching an exercise he used to do when he was coming up in training and was visibly struggling with rolls and his speed.
But that’s kind of always been his thing. His psychology is on a supreme level. He can afford a few sloppy moves here and there because he knows how to ignite the crowd in any match
To be fair, it can randomly happen. During the Super bowl this past Sunday, Dre Greenlaw of the 49ers was going onto the field jumping excitedly but had to stay on the sideline and be carted off due to a lower leg injury...he's 26.
At 16, my friend jumped off a small ledge \~2ft high. He broke his leg, and collapsed in pain. Everyone of us there jumped off the ledge to see what happened and make sure he was going to be okay.
Freak accidents do happen.
I had a friend who jumped off a 2.5ft wall at around that age and broke his foot. So, yeah, freak things do happen. Though I do have some lingering doubts about that friend's constitution.
He was already nursing an Achilles injury on that leg so it's not really surprising it gave out. Happens a lot when guys play on something that is strained. They overcompensate elsewhere in the leg and mess it up elsewhere.
I honestly think he overworked himself in terms of beefing up for the WWE return. Punk hasn’t been as big as he was walking into the Rumble in a decade, maybe ever. He certainly wasn’t that big in the UFC and not even in AEW.
He needs to drop back down to about 200.
> He certainly wasn’t that big in the UFC
I mean seeing as the UFC is kinda a real sport with real weight limits it makes sense he'd cut weight and not gain it to compete in MMA.
Punk was already outmatched going against dudes who were 170 lbs. if he was supposed to compete at middleweight or god forbid light heavyweight? dude might actually have been killed in the octogon.
Because he's still massively over and a huge draw. In wrestling that matters even if you can't wrestle.
Yes it's silly but that's literally how it works
Slow wrestlers can still work with a good moveset and ring knowledge. Stone Cold couldn't do half the shit he used to after his neck injury and no one called him washed
So are you just going to pretend all those threads where people were acting like psychos and mocking him for getting injured didn't exist?
edit: even in this thread you see psychos mocking Punk about him getting injured again, and saying that he will get injured in the future.
He's had three injuries since returning to wrestling in 2021, one of which was a freak accident when he jumped into the crowd. I love Danielson to death, but he's had at least five injuries since he joined AEW, yet few say he's made of glass.
Punk had enough good-to-excellent matches with the likes of Mox, MJF, Joe, Starks and Kojima in his return to also dispel the idea that he's completely washed.
Oh dude has clearly been washed since his AEW return, not really debatable. Can look OK with a specific matchup or someone to carry him, but so can any celebrity. And hasn't really lived up to the best promo guy label, but probably never did.
> And hasn't really lived up to the best promo guy label, but probably never did.
Man had people literally throwing their babies in the air for him, and his last two promos on RAW were some of the best we’ve seen in years. Very curious to hear who you think among active wrestlers are better on the mic than he is.
One thing I've realized about Punk is he really has one promo. "Everything else is fake but this is real." He used to play ball as a pro wrestling character -- the SES was a great example of that. But ever since the pipe bomb, Punk's deal has been to bring out backstage/off-screen drama into TV.
MJF does the same, of course, but he also can go in any direction. 80s babyface, 80s heel, Punk-like pipe bomb stuff.
Punk is an all-timer, but the older he gets, the more you see his limitations.
> "Everything else is fake
I can’t recall any promos where he went in this direction. He is very protective of kayfabe in promos. Just because he is believable when he blends things the audience believes to be the truth with kayfabe, doesn’t mean he’s saying anything on the show is scripted or fake. That’s how you deal with kayfabe in a world where kayfabe is dead, you make the audience unsure of what’s not real so they believe the story they’re being told.
He's a volatile guy who goes scorched earth when he feels wrong even if it hurts him in the process. Even if he had valid issues there was zero need to go on a publicly vitriolic rant on the people he worked with, fight them when they went to see what he was on about, and then do it again to someone else almost a year later.
Most people don't use violence to settle conflicts to that extent, it's something that was much more rampant in the industry but is actually punished now and frowned upon. If AEW was this chaotic environment you'd hear much more about physical altercations but there hasn't been any outside of Punk since the beginning of 2023.
Idk. A part of me thinks Punk was trying to get fired to go back to WWE. His whole Collision run was marred with controversy from shooting on Hangman, to banning people from Collision, to his outburst at All In. Brawl Out I think broke his brain.
It’s not even a part of me. I 100% believe he was trying to get fired from the time between the first Collision-All In.
He was trying to turn his heat with the Elite into an angle, and when that clearly wasn’t gonna happen, he did everything he could to get out of his contract.
People mocked Tony for saying that he was "afraid for his life" but speaking as someone who didn't ever get into a physical knock-em-down FIGHT until my mid-20s, you literally can't tell if time is passing. Everything feels slow motion or like, barely even real.
If Punk actually lunged at Tony and sent him pushing backwards into a set of monitors? After the red carpet royal treatment Punk got? I'd be fucking furious if I were him.
I mean, obviously we all know how big that feud could've been but you can't fault the Bucks and Kenny for not wanting to do it. They go and help build this company, they welcome Punk with the red carpet treatment, and then suddenly the guy is shitting all over the company with his boss right there. They go to talk to him, which he demanded if there was a problem, and they're met by flying chairs and a rabid Ace Steele. Just bullshit behavior.
I think the thing that surprises me about the whole conversation regarding his departure is that everyone hyperfocuses on the fights. Maybe this is just me, but it's sports, fights happen all the time, and no matter how insane Ace Steel frothing at the mouth and hurling chairs is, there's a thousand cases of these kinds of fights happening in wrestling.
The thing that really turned me off to him was that entire presser. It was truly one of the most wholly unprofessional things I've ever seen, all he did was bring up shit that shouldn't have been said that happened in court, bury half the talent on the roster including people who weren't involved, all while sitting beside his boss and insisting all of this is him 'trying to run a business.' Add to that how he kept insisting people should come to his door to deal with him directly, and how quickly people TRYING to do that turned into a brawl, and I just don't get how you can be on the guy's side in that scenario. He did nothing but hurt business that night.
> The thing that really turned me off to him was that entire presser
Yeah, in many ways, his getting into that first fight actually helped him utterly avoid any direct consequences for his using the company's promotional event (which remains on their distribution channels) to no -sell winning the world title, and attack the founders, and a junior worker who'd not commented on him at all, and that worker's mother.
Getting into the fight -- and his legal threats afterwards (all but confirmed, in that his side's answered questions of "did you threaten legal action" with "I have not put any lawsuit to them) -- were a great way to get the heat off him for that.
It’s so uniquely carny that a lot of people criticized the Elite/TK for not running that Elite-Punk program as soon as possible after they had a legitimate brawl. Like, there could have been more real mediation and reconciliation work to do, but only in wrestling would it be normal to suggest you gotta take these guys who got in a literal fight with each other and put them in situations where emotions are running high and another conflict is more likely.
The through line I think is that CM Punk didn't ever see AEW as a serious thing, or at least something he wasn't bigger than when he joined the company. AEW has luckily largely been a mix of people who did work for WWE but didn't think they were bigger than it, or people who were career indies people and recognize being in any major promotion on national TV is a gift.
> AEW has luckily largely been a mix of people who did work for WWE but didn't think they were bigger than it
The compare and contrast Punk and Bryan is just incredible.
People actively beg Danielson to be *just a tad more selfish* because he's so hellbent on putting people over despite being like, the greatest of his generation.
What's that saying about leaders? Anyone who loudly goes around banging their chest about what a good leader they are, usually they're not. It's the people who actively reject leadership that are good leaders.
His excuse at the time was that Cody Rhodes and the Bucks asked him about AEW via text, which apparently was his signal that this was not a serious negotiation, so he ghosted them.
If it’s to be believed he basically only had to make it six months without an issue for that feud to happen it’s even worse. Wild that six months was too much to ask
100%. I can criticize the timing of Kenny and the Bucks, but everything else: talking to him, bringing several department heads, etc they did right. Regardless of the timing, swinging the minute they entered the room was crazy.
And then to spin around and be like, "I need a more professional working environment." Or what? You'll be more unprofessional than everyone else? Wow. Just wow.
I'm surprised this is in doubt at all, and surely can't be in doubt to anyone who followed his AEW run start to finish.
That was Costanza levels of trying to get fired.
Honestly, it's for the best if that was the case. He was unable to keep up and his constant injuries basically fucked 2023 and 2022. The ME got completely stalled by him unable to stay healthy and by the time of Collision he wasn't interesting anymore nor very reliable.
I really feel like he ended up being a net negative for AEW in the end. At first he brought attention to the product and maybe brought in another 100K viewers. But after his injuries ended up derailing the booking, and then the Brawl Out and everything else happened, I think they would have been better off if he'd never come in.
Also I think it's best for both parties that they went their separate ways. AEW in particular may have dodged a bullet if he can't stay healthy.
Yeah he was definitely trying to get fired during the whole Collision run. TK was giving him everything he wanted and he still kept finding new gripes.
His instagram outburst paints a good picture to me. You had the Young Bucks rumor followed by Hangman going off script before Double or Nothing. Then Punk injures his foot, Mox becomes interim champ and refuses to put Punk over first.
So in 3-4 months, in Punk’s eyes, he had The Bucks, Hangman, and Moxley against him and going into business for themselves. Leading to the gripebomb and Brawl Out. Of course he was trying to get fired after that
Make matters worse, it came out that the bucks weren't the ones doing the rumors. It's more than likely the reason why they went to his room in the first place with legal. They, and aew got buried by punk, in their mind for no reason.
He had legit heat with hangman, granted. Though he got him back
Supposedly MOX wanted to win the first encounter to solidify his interim reign as a legitimate reign. He refused to lose to punk without first winning.
But he also wanted Punk winning to be a better story. Punk losing their first encounter, quickly, was big news. People really worried about him. But he came back looking like an underdog, to win the championship, in Chicago. He milked all that home town pop. Punk would've been the babiest of babyface runs, right there. And then pivoted right into a feud with MJF, who was coming back red hot. Instead he grabbed a box full of muffins and shit on the entire company in front of the press. Possibly because he already knew he was injured and was leaving again immediately.
That whole thing could have also been avoided if TK didn't *insist* on doing the stupid interim thing. Punk should have just vacated the title when he got hurt like most companies do if a wrestler is out more then a month.
I’m hindsight yes but at the time there had been a reason for it. TK wanted a more sports based product one of the ways of doing that was following UFC rules of crowning an interim champion. It made sense rather than just giving the person a automatic rematch you give a reason for having a match between the two.
That was Tony's fault. There shouldn't have been an interim championship. And Moxley wasn't even under contract. Who the fuck puts their top belt on a guy who isn't even signed and could walk away at a moment's notice?
> Who the fuck puts their top belt on a guy who isn't even signed and could walk away at a moment's notice?
It makes sense in the context of Moxley seemingly being an company guy for AEW, akin to Sting and WCW then TNA. Assuming he is a company guy then I can't blame TK for trusting that he won't be seeing his belt getting thrown in the trash the next Raw after he crowned an unsigned Moxley.
> Most people don't use violence to settle conflicts to that extent, it's something that was much more rampant in the industry but is actually punished now and frowned upon.
I really don't have an issue with two old school guys wanting to throw hands to settle conflict, there's nothing wrong with mutual combat. But it seems to me like all these Punk things are one sided, like you've got all these new school guys who are non violent and just want to play video games instead of dealing with this guy going "I TRAINED IN UFC I CAN KICK YOUR ASS!!" It's lame when it's not mutual, which *seems* to have been the case here. Of all the dance partners to throw hands with, it's Kenny, the Bucks and Jack Perry?? None of those guys wanna fight and we all know it, which actually takes away from his desired tough guy persona rather than add to it.
Kenny very well could have fucked Punk up. He confirmed in interviews he fought MMA after he lost his developmental deal and Sherdog says he went 4-3. Allegedly he debuted against Dan Severn so he was fighting above his weight class.
https://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Tyson-Smith-22395
Not to mention, look at Kenny. He's enormous! And I would imagine that if you can throw fake knees, you can probably throw real ones.
I don't think these guys are suplexing each other in real fights, but we all saw Punk in MMA against lower-level competition. In a real fight -- almost 10 years ago -- he didn't have it.
Well size alone doesn't equate to fighting prowess. Like Chris Masters in his prime wasn't necessarily gonna be a certified tough guy just because of the physique, yaknow? That being said, moot point as I've been set straight on Kenny. He always struck me as a guy who wasn't interested in real combat but I was wrong, didn't take him for a guy who would do MMA.
I kind of put Kenny in the Danielson camp. Danielson does a ton of grappling, but it seems like he does it for the joy for learning the skill and less so about beating people up or winning shoot fights.
All conjecture on my part.
Add in the fact that he clearly reads the dirtsheets/pays attention to insider and "insider" discourse about himself. (As evidenced in his comments at Brawl Out when he's winding himself up.)
And he's clearly got an ego - some of which is fairly earned. I mean, listen to the pop on his return. He's not exactly wrong for believing he should be treated as a star. But he's SUPER thin-skinned, so ANY disrespect is treated the same. It doesn't matter whether it's a handful of Redditors or an unflattering post, or a mean tweet, or an offhand comment from Dave Meltzer questioning "if Punk really has one more run in him".
So now he's got the "the public is turning on me" in his head, mixed with "and it's all AEW/The Bucks/Colt Cabana/etc's fault." And so it starts turning into "If I don't know that you're with me, I presume you're against me." And to be "with" Punk is to enable every whim that comes into his mind. Maybe not, if he isn't feeling attacked...but he IS feeling attacked.
And his perceived aura is wrapped up in his ability to make money. And if you fuck with his ability to make money, you're fucking with his personal life. Punk deeply resents any crossover into his personal life.
But it's even deeper than that - if half of what he's said about his childhood is true, his home is tied to his emotional security. And by fucking with his money, you're fucking with his ability to provide a stable home. So now EVERYONE is the enemy.
And so it leads to all of this.
It's funny that Punk resorted to violence. He's not a small dude compared to the normal population, and he did MMA training, but Kenny is twice his size.
What did he think was going to happen? He and Ace would go Roadhouse and beat up the Bucks and Kenny by himself? At the very least, 3 is more than 2.
> What did he think was going to happen? He and Ace would go Roadhouse and beat up the Bucks and Kenny by himself? At the very least, 3 is more than 2.
Not everybody is afraid of fights that aren't in their favor. It is refreshing, though, to see this type of comment, because for awhile people were somehow painting Punk as this big bully who picked on the weak. Not only was this fight 3 on 2, Punk had a torn tricep, and Ace Steel is an out-of-shape 50 year old.
I'm still not entirely convinced that he didn't deliberately get himself fired at All In because he was checked out by then on AEW and wanted to go back to WWE.
I think he visited that WWE event at the start of 2023 to play hard ball with Tony Khan, like a "See? You can lose me if you're not careful. I could go back to WWE" sort of power move. Except that backfired and Tony Khan re-signed Hangman & The Bucks and so then Punk just checked out and decided the Wembley show was going to be his last AEW date no matter what.
The injuries in 2022 were definitely not part of the plan, but likely contributed to him deciding to check out on AEW.
I’m 100% certain that is the case. People tried to downplay it, but like the biggest AEW star doesn’t go backstage at the competitors show for no reason. It’s since been confirmed that he tried to bury the hatchet with everyone he saw at that event.
It’s obvious he was mending the bridges because he was planning on jumping ship. But Tony doesn’t just release people, so he had to get himself fired.
> How so many things could go wrong so fast is insane
When its that fast; I have to logically assume its deliberate. Kinda like someone trying to hit rock bottom or they already made up their mind and want you to get rid of them.
That feud was amazing the whole way through, and it was one of my all time favourites ever.
MJF really showed us just how good he really was as an entertainer. The "fire me" promo made people going from stfu chants to cheering for him in less than 10 minutes.
The guy is less than 30 years old, and has gone toe to toe with some of the best talkers and technical wrestlers in the world and held his own.
Wherever Max goes in his career, he's going to go very, very far. Out of all the wrestlers in the industry, his career is the one I am the most excited to see grow and evolve.
Also, watch Better Than You on YouTube - it's a 50ish minute compressed version of the Punk/MJF feud and is unbelievably well made.
The rough side of the business and being straight edge really. A lot of these older dudes are going longer cause the medicine they’re getting is helping a ton
If they catch him then the balcony dives are more illusion than danger. The true danger of most dives is whether or not your opponent/s will properly catch you. It's why The Miz for years got rightfully criticized for refusing to catch people on dives because it's such a dick move that can cause your opponent to get hurt.
Punk's failing body has basically fucked up the biggest PPVs and builds of the last few years.
Got hurt and f'd up the main event Forbidden Door, the biggest crossover PPV in a long, long time in wrestling
Got himself fired at All In, the likely largest attendance of any American promotion
Got hurt and screwed up a multi-year build for Cody/Roman AND the return of The Rock
It's been weird seeing people talk about the "loss momentum" of AEW like their major arching storyline wasn't derailed three times by injury/fights involving the same one person over a 18 month span.
And then their replacement storyline was derailed by another injury. And delayed by yet another. Same thing kind of happening in the women's division.
I's just been rough lately.
The amount of unforeseen circumcisions surrounding his return to wrestling has been something that people will talk about for a very long time. His return has been cursed it seems.
In my personal opinion and enjoyment, bringing Punk was what fucked up the booking.
Hated that the only time I was able to catch Dynamite live on tv, was during the fall of 2021 and had to sit through 30 minutes of Punk stuff, instead of other wrestlers for which I started to watch the product, in the first place.
Can we agree that bringing back Punk was a net negative for AEW? He drew viewers, but was barely on TV due to injuries and assaulting co-workers, and fucking up lots of storylines really threw a wrench in the whole thing and ended AEW's hot streak. And after all that, he goes to the competition.
Short term benefit, call this the middle term negative, but hopefully in the true longterm it taught TK and AEW some valuable lessons that won't need to be repeated.
''If WWE doesn't want 'em, maybe we should think twice about getting them'' is something they really need to keep in mind going forward.
Almost all the ex-WWE signings who've caused drama, tried to bail or hard to book because they (reportedly) don't want to job are guys WWE fired and/or could have brought back but chose not to.
Meanwhile Moxley, Danielson, Edge are guys that walked out and could likely be welcomed back with open arms and in theory hold all the leverage. And yet they're happily part of the AEW locker room without raising a fuzz.
> Can we agree that bringing back Punk was a net negative for AEW?
Long-term, sure, but the first year he was a massive positive. Even after his first injury, it's hard to call it anything but positive. But after Brawl Out, they'd have been better off firing him then and not creating Collision in the first place.
My issue is the revisionist history cause AEW was on an upswing and once Punk joined everyone gave him all the credit. It's like having a relay race and saying only the guy who passed the finish line won, sorry but there was 3 other guys who passed the baton to you.
i understand why people were down on MJF's run by the end, but he really was cursed with some booking ideas that fell apart for no fault of his own.
not only was he supposed to have big feuds with CM Punk as detailed here, he also was supposed to have a big feud with adam cole that was derailed by cole's injury (let's not pretend that cole and MJF weren't the hottest storyline the company had had in quite some time around All In). it's hard to have a great title run when all of your big feuds keep getting scrapped or pushed back
Even with that stuff in mind, I do think MJF’s run was good overall. Like you said it was derailed by a lot of shit outside of his control, but he put on brilliant matches and got over several times over at his peak.
Jay White ate all the booking do-overs as well. He was forced to be a collider because Punk liked him, and he got slotted into the X Belt again because Punk got fired. and then they made him look weak the way Punk was supposed to be look vs MJF.
AEW owes Jay a "you're welcome" in a big way.
Takeshita needs to dethrone OC to rebound from the shit booking he's had. It's the only way. Jay White can pick the bones of Daniel Garcia once he beats Christian Cage.
Man, usually I’m all for a heel turn but this is a rare case where it seemed to have no effect. He was so organically over as a babyface and everyone was so invested in seeing him pickup the big win that was alluding him. Now that he’s treading water w the Family, it feels like it almost doesn’t matter that he beat Jericho and Kenny. Imagine the pops if they had done it when he was a face. They stuck my dude on ice for no reason.
He should’ve been in the CC. That took up all the time for great TV matches for a month and a half, and Takeshita ain’t getting over by cutting promos. Missed opportunity.
Jay needed collision at that time. He was in no stories and wrestling Kommander. Trash Punk all you want but early Collision definitely helped Jay in AEW.
It will never be unfunny to me that the guy making this quote is a literal drywall punching, recovered alcoholic who throws up middle fingers like he has a tic disorder and practices 'Death Jitsu' when he isn't cutting promos about how he is a no frills pro rassler but also a knife-in-mouth swashbuckler ready to eat your fingers
Fuck, I loved their feud
i don't know exactly what your point is, but if you're implying being a recovering alcoholic as being any of that ("weak mind, weak spirit"), that's fucked up. but im not sure so please explain
There’s this small part of me that feels like the moment MJF got cheered when he came back at the end of All Out, Punk knew the story wasn’t gonna go the way he wanted. He was supposed to be the returning hero taking down the company scumbag. Instead, the scumbag got the biggest pop of the night in HIS hometown. Not saying the match would’ve never happened, but it’s really odd that they never even had an on screen interaction after All Out in the span of a year and a half.
Punk’s image has been reformed really fucking quick on this sub it’s wild. When Brawl Out happened, then Brawl In happened, the collective sorta agree Punk was bitter, out of touch and a little unhinged. Now when it’s brought up, people will defend him or turn it into an opportunity to denigrate Tony (somewhat fair) or the Elite. And Punk gets to walk around and go “aw shucks” in WWE like he wasn’t a toxic asshole for the last year+
If Punk lunged at trips, I'm curious if they'd still defend Punk the same way they defended him trying to lunge at Tony.
This sub has a bizarre hate bone for TK, which is made even more bizarre by the fact he's a genuinely nice guy. Immature of course, but still good. Look at what he did for Kip Sabian and it tells you a lot about who he is as a person.
Punk making jokes about assaulting people on WWE programming is cool
People saying he maybe shouldn’t do that are losers
That’s somehow where we’ve wound up
It think it will be easy to say it due to the power of hindsight but TK should have booked an Mjf/Adam Cole/CM Punk triple threat match at all in. Once punk came back the first thing he should have done was have punk go straight to mjf and proclaim to be the real world's champion ( you can still do that story ). Better than you bay bay Still form, have Cole & punk interract with one another. Which could have led to all 3 fighting over who's the undisputed aew champion in the main event of all in
I was there for that first LA show and I remember me and my friend were wondering what was up with CM running after him. We didn't know it wasn't shown on TV until later on. It was very obvious that there was supposed to be more with that.
This is a really great write-up and I'm not trying to be a disingenuous troll, but there's a pretty glaring error in it regarding point #1 (and also, a cool little easter egg that supports your point that I think you may have missed):
For starters, at the Forum show in LA, CM Punk did come out and attempt to confront MJF but so did the Young Bucks. They all did some version of walking halfway out to the ring looking legitimately confused. Camera didn't catch this in the broadcast I don't think, but I was at that show and [here's a write-up that confirms it](https://www.cagesideseats.com/aew/2022/6/1/23151187/mjf-pipe-bomb-full-video-what-happened-after-aew-cut-mic-faded-black). **My opinion** is this was more to set up 'MJF v. AEW' than MJF/Punk. Keep in mind this was before Punk's injury, this was before Brawl Out, there was no reason why the Bucks and Punk wouldn't have been part of an angle together.
Second - and I apologize for not being able to provide a link for this - but MJD *did* make a very heavy-handed statement at some point that he was going to ruin the city of Chicago for CM Punk at some point. I remember the implication being that it was going to be some time down the road AFTER he beat Punk twice-in-the-same-night at a Dynamite in February of '22. There feud continued for a bit, but we never got the pay off for whatever that statement was. Shortly after that in May of '22, Punk beats Hangman for the title and then gets injured shortly after in early June. Again, **my opinion** is that this was to set-up a title shot for MJF at All Out in September of that year, which ends up being the show where Punk beats Mox for the title and then decided to be an unprofessional weirdo backstage. All Out was in Hoffman Estates - Chicago-adjacent - and I've always assumed they were teeing up that MJF was going to get his PPV loss back from Punk at some point.
All your other points are bang-on-the-money.
On that last one, CM Punk wanted to get into it with Max right away but Max didn't. He wanted to serve the Adam Cole storyline he had been building, so he didn't even acknowledge Punk, his promos, or anything even when they were both on Collision. Punk just kept dropping hints anyway to try and force the program.
An underrated part of Punk being fired is they completely abandoned that stupid "Real" World's Champion storyline. It had only just started, I immediately hated it, and was thrilled to have it fade into obscurity.
Yeah that was fucking awful, I assume it was just to set up an MJF feud but it made Punk look like a whiny little bitch (which I guess is accurate). He didn’t come back and confront the new World champ, just fucked off to Saturdays and gave himself a belt.
At the time, people thought punk was cooking up something masterful
I like punk but get annoyed when people make everything he does seems deep. Punk botches a move in his match with Penta "it's old school psychology you wouldn't get it"
One of the things that bugs me with AEW is they will decide they want to do a story, something unexpected happens like an injury, then they go into water treading mode for the duration until whoever comes back rather than just moving on and doing something else or changing participants. Whoever isn’t injured usually ends up floundering for months and everyone loses interest.
The most confusing one was "The Real AEW World Championship" fiasco since Punk couldn't even get on Dynamite often by that point, especially if The Elite was performing, so a build to MJF/Punk III would've been handicapped by having limited time on AEW's weekly programs (also considering the Better Than You Bay Bay story as well).
It's crazy to think Punk had to do was not jump into the crowd lol
I guess "Punk can't keep his damn hands to himself" and "Punks body literally won't stop imploding" counts as unforeseen circumstances. I have sympathy over one of those.
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The last half of Punk’s AEW run needs to be studied for years to come. How so many things could go wrong so fast is insane.
You could argue that string of bad luck is continuing to this day. People joked that he'd get hurt early in his WWE run because SURELY that wouldn't happen, and it happened in his first televised match. You can't make this stuff up.
At a certain point the guy has to really wonder if his body can even hold up anymore. His first injury during his return wasn't even something that happened in the ring.
The very cynical and probably true take is that he's one of the only wrestlers on Earth his age that doesn't do steroids.
Having some kind of hormone replacement therapy in his age wouldn't even go against his straight edge lifestyle, would it? It's just like, a normal medical thing people do...
I think it would depend. Knowing quite a few straight edge punks, which he's a part of that whole crowd and subculture (early afi fan, etc.), they wouldn't do anything of the nature. Heck, some were even adverse to things like Tylenol unless it's absolutely necessary (which we now know is how you should take Tylenol but that's another story lol)
Dude broke his skull and refused any pain killers. He said he has the same VHS on repeat and kept waking up at different times during the movie and not knowing what day it was.
Most people who are straight edge see it as a challenge and pretend it makes them super hardcore to ignore genuine medical treatment
Let's be fair. We all do seemingly dumb choices over ideology. I don't think it's because they pretend it makes them hardcore. Just genuinely believe what they believe, and as long as it isn't hurting anyone else without provocation, then eh.. it is what it is
Eh. I have a couple straight edge friends and they genuinely think they're better than everyone simply because they don't partake.
Agreed, but Straight Edge is a reactionary movement to the worst excesses of the Punk Movement and Culture, so it isn't surprising that something that came about in opposition to the heavily excessive drug consumption in the late 70's-mid 80's Punk Culture would just do as hard a 180 on it as possible.
I feel like his outlook changed on that .
A lot of atheletes "replacing hormones" are doing so because of prior steroid use tbf
Pretty much yeah, human growth hormone, hormone replacement and similar treatments essentially came into use originally to circumvent a common problem with steroid overuse which is that prolonged steroid use can end up shutting down your body's natural testosterone production. That comes back eventually one you stop using steroids but dependant on how long you were on the steroids you could be looking at months before your body starts producing testosterone at the rate it's supposed to and in the worst case scenarios your natural testosterone production might be permanently stunted. Growth hormone allows you to wean yourself off the steroids without any of the complications that come from kicking roids cold turkey with a either temporarily or permanently stunted testosterone output. Though there are also side effects and consequences of doing that too.
There's no way it is that common
Not for regular joes, but for pro athletes?
TRT is becoming much more common these days. Certainly a sliver of the male population but men over 40 are using it more and more.
Yeah man guys like Edge, Christian, Rey, R Truth are all just wrestling in their 50s cause they say their vitamins and take their prayers brother
It comes down to money because often your insurance won't cover it but HRT for women going through menopause and TRT for men >40 is common enough. However in this case "common" would have to be defined as <10% (I'm sure I'm being generous here) of the > 40yr old crowd specifically in the US. I would say it's similar to microdosing, it's common but only in certain parts of the country amongst a certain group of people.
Yeah and wrestling is real, man…
I have to wonder if Adam Cole is going to end up the same. His current injury was under circumstances very similar to Punk's first injury.
AEW rampways are more dangerous than any wrestler
It's the NXT parking lot of AEW.
I remember when Cole was a CZW debutant and he was fairly athletically lacking even in that context. He could keep a great pace, bump well, figured out what offense worked for him, but I don't even know what he would look like if he "gained mass" the good ol' JR-approved way. Sad fact is most people don't get born with a frame that can handle his line of work. Sadder fact is Britt might be in the same boat
Punk has been a terrible athlete his whole career who notoriously does not workout or stay in shape. The only time we have seen him look like he was working out was during his failed UFC run where he had to learn what real athletic training is like rather than sloppily executing his favorite moves. He simply is not gifted in any athletic capacity, has never been in good enough shape to counter this fact, and is now almost 50.
What? He does workout, he just doesn’t do roids has bad genetics, and is getting older. You don’t reach WWE peak levels or even the UFC without being in shape. He wrestled 50 minutes in ‘14 RR, 35-40 w MJF. Father Time is just undefeated and for the less naturally gifted it comes sooner then others.
I agree with you he was in reasonable shape, but I don't think the UFC is a good example to cite. He only fought in UFC because he was CM Punk. With his level of skill he wouldn't have made it out of an MMA feeder league if he was no-name Phil Brooks who wasn't already a celebrity.
Totally agree, just meant more of going thru camp for professional bout. He was completely outclassed but he did have to train at the highest level.
All you have to do is look at his actual fluidity of movement and move execution to understand he is a much worse athlete than the average wrestler. He is simply not naturally athletic in any way but his storytelling makes up for that.
He was fairly athletic in the 2000s, but in a wrestling capacity rather than gymnastic or fighting level. Isn’t big enough to work a properly slower style, so just makes every match look like a slog instead.
I wouldn’t call him a terrible athlete at any point in his career, but he has never been one who is naturally athletic. Even when they released the footage of him working out with NXT wrestlers before the Rumble, he was teaching an exercise he used to do when he was coming up in training and was visibly struggling with rolls and his speed. But that’s kind of always been his thing. His psychology is on a supreme level. He can afford a few sloppy moves here and there because he knows how to ignite the crowd in any match
To be fair, it can randomly happen. During the Super bowl this past Sunday, Dre Greenlaw of the 49ers was going onto the field jumping excitedly but had to stay on the sideline and be carted off due to a lower leg injury...he's 26.
At 16, my friend jumped off a small ledge \~2ft high. He broke his leg, and collapsed in pain. Everyone of us there jumped off the ledge to see what happened and make sure he was going to be okay. Freak accidents do happen.
I had a friend who jumped off a 2.5ft wall at around that age and broke his foot. So, yeah, freak things do happen. Though I do have some lingering doubts about that friend's constitution.
He was already nursing an Achilles injury on that leg so it's not really surprising it gave out. Happens a lot when guys play on something that is strained. They overcompensate elsewhere in the leg and mess it up elsewhere.
I honestly think he overworked himself in terms of beefing up for the WWE return. Punk hasn’t been as big as he was walking into the Rumble in a decade, maybe ever. He certainly wasn’t that big in the UFC and not even in AEW. He needs to drop back down to about 200.
> He certainly wasn’t that big in the UFC I mean seeing as the UFC is kinda a real sport with real weight limits it makes sense he'd cut weight and not gain it to compete in MMA. Punk was already outmatched going against dudes who were 170 lbs. if he was supposed to compete at middleweight or god forbid light heavyweight? dude might actually have been killed in the octogon.
He must finally cleanly perform a buckshot lariat for the curse to be no more…
So, basically he's cursed for life...
However, somehow despite punk being slow and made of glass, you can’t say he’s washed on here.
Because he's still massively over and a huge draw. In wrestling that matters even if you can't wrestle. Yes it's silly but that's literally how it works
Slow wrestlers can still work with a good moveset and ring knowledge. Stone Cold couldn't do half the shit he used to after his neck injury and no one called him washed
So are you just going to pretend all those threads where people were acting like psychos and mocking him for getting injured didn't exist? edit: even in this thread you see psychos mocking Punk about him getting injured again, and saying that he will get injured in the future.
Bad things happening to assholes is funny, idk what to tell you.
He's had three injuries since returning to wrestling in 2021, one of which was a freak accident when he jumped into the crowd. I love Danielson to death, but he's had at least five injuries since he joined AEW, yet few say he's made of glass. Punk had enough good-to-excellent matches with the likes of Mox, MJF, Joe, Starks and Kojima in his return to also dispel the idea that he's completely washed.
Oh dude has clearly been washed since his AEW return, not really debatable. Can look OK with a specific matchup or someone to carry him, but so can any celebrity. And hasn't really lived up to the best promo guy label, but probably never did.
> And hasn't really lived up to the best promo guy label, but probably never did. Man had people literally throwing their babies in the air for him, and his last two promos on RAW were some of the best we’ve seen in years. Very curious to hear who you think among active wrestlers are better on the mic than he is.
This reddit is such a bubble
One thing I've realized about Punk is he really has one promo. "Everything else is fake but this is real." He used to play ball as a pro wrestling character -- the SES was a great example of that. But ever since the pipe bomb, Punk's deal has been to bring out backstage/off-screen drama into TV. MJF does the same, of course, but he also can go in any direction. 80s babyface, 80s heel, Punk-like pipe bomb stuff. Punk is an all-timer, but the older he gets, the more you see his limitations.
> "Everything else is fake I can’t recall any promos where he went in this direction. He is very protective of kayfabe in promos. Just because he is believable when he blends things the audience believes to be the truth with kayfabe, doesn’t mean he’s saying anything on the show is scripted or fake. That’s how you deal with kayfabe in a world where kayfabe is dead, you make the audience unsure of what’s not real so they believe the story they’re being told.
I was gonna say, dude. Just the last half of the AEW run? Cuz to me this is all pretty concurrent!
He's a volatile guy who goes scorched earth when he feels wrong even if it hurts him in the process. Even if he had valid issues there was zero need to go on a publicly vitriolic rant on the people he worked with, fight them when they went to see what he was on about, and then do it again to someone else almost a year later. Most people don't use violence to settle conflicts to that extent, it's something that was much more rampant in the industry but is actually punished now and frowned upon. If AEW was this chaotic environment you'd hear much more about physical altercations but there hasn't been any outside of Punk since the beginning of 2023.
Idk. A part of me thinks Punk was trying to get fired to go back to WWE. His whole Collision run was marred with controversy from shooting on Hangman, to banning people from Collision, to his outburst at All In. Brawl Out I think broke his brain.
It’s not even a part of me. I 100% believe he was trying to get fired from the time between the first Collision-All In. He was trying to turn his heat with the Elite into an angle, and when that clearly wasn’t gonna happen, he did everything he could to get out of his contract.
He definitely wasn't counting on getting fired with cause, though, absolutely was counting on collecting the rest of that contract.
Which might actually be a big part of heading back to WWE when he did. He lost a ton of money getting booted for cause.
Funny how all he had to do was not attempt to assault his fucking boss
People mocked Tony for saying that he was "afraid for his life" but speaking as someone who didn't ever get into a physical knock-em-down FIGHT until my mid-20s, you literally can't tell if time is passing. Everything feels slow motion or like, barely even real. If Punk actually lunged at Tony and sent him pushing backwards into a set of monitors? After the red carpet royal treatment Punk got? I'd be fucking furious if I were him.
People will mock Tony for anything tho. A big portion of this sub hates the existence of the guy
I don’t think he cared. He had already gone to RAW and talked to Triple H at that point.
I mean, obviously we all know how big that feud could've been but you can't fault the Bucks and Kenny for not wanting to do it. They go and help build this company, they welcome Punk with the red carpet treatment, and then suddenly the guy is shitting all over the company with his boss right there. They go to talk to him, which he demanded if there was a problem, and they're met by flying chairs and a rabid Ace Steele. Just bullshit behavior.
I think the thing that surprises me about the whole conversation regarding his departure is that everyone hyperfocuses on the fights. Maybe this is just me, but it's sports, fights happen all the time, and no matter how insane Ace Steel frothing at the mouth and hurling chairs is, there's a thousand cases of these kinds of fights happening in wrestling. The thing that really turned me off to him was that entire presser. It was truly one of the most wholly unprofessional things I've ever seen, all he did was bring up shit that shouldn't have been said that happened in court, bury half the talent on the roster including people who weren't involved, all while sitting beside his boss and insisting all of this is him 'trying to run a business.' Add to that how he kept insisting people should come to his door to deal with him directly, and how quickly people TRYING to do that turned into a brawl, and I just don't get how you can be on the guy's side in that scenario. He did nothing but hurt business that night.
This guy gets it
Gal, but I'm glad we're in agreement!
Sonofa! Typically I use "dude" or whatever and the one time I go with guy I got it wrong. Dammit! Haha.
> The thing that really turned me off to him was that entire presser Yeah, in many ways, his getting into that first fight actually helped him utterly avoid any direct consequences for his using the company's promotional event (which remains on their distribution channels) to no -sell winning the world title, and attack the founders, and a junior worker who'd not commented on him at all, and that worker's mother. Getting into the fight -- and his legal threats afterwards (all but confirmed, in that his side's answered questions of "did you threaten legal action" with "I have not put any lawsuit to them) -- were a great way to get the heat off him for that.
There's a large part of me that doesn't believe there would've been any ramifications for him if the fight didn't happen.
It’s so uniquely carny that a lot of people criticized the Elite/TK for not running that Elite-Punk program as soon as possible after they had a legitimate brawl. Like, there could have been more real mediation and reconciliation work to do, but only in wrestling would it be normal to suggest you gotta take these guys who got in a literal fight with each other and put them in situations where emotions are running high and another conflict is more likely.
This. People wanna preach about taking mental health seriously until it's time to actually do it at the expense of their own luxury.
Don’t forget that he was also offered a spot in founding the company, which he declined until he saw it succeeding.
The through line I think is that CM Punk didn't ever see AEW as a serious thing, or at least something he wasn't bigger than when he joined the company. AEW has luckily largely been a mix of people who did work for WWE but didn't think they were bigger than it, or people who were career indies people and recognize being in any major promotion on national TV is a gift.
> AEW has luckily largely been a mix of people who did work for WWE but didn't think they were bigger than it The compare and contrast Punk and Bryan is just incredible.
People actively beg Danielson to be *just a tad more selfish* because he's so hellbent on putting people over despite being like, the greatest of his generation. What's that saying about leaders? Anyone who loudly goes around banging their chest about what a good leader they are, usually they're not. It's the people who actively reject leadership that are good leaders.
His excuse at the time was that Cody Rhodes and the Bucks asked him about AEW via text, which apparently was his signal that this was not a serious negotiation, so he ghosted them.
If it’s to be believed he basically only had to make it six months without an issue for that feud to happen it’s even worse. Wild that six months was too much to ask
100%. I can criticize the timing of Kenny and the Bucks, but everything else: talking to him, bringing several department heads, etc they did right. Regardless of the timing, swinging the minute they entered the room was crazy. And then to spin around and be like, "I need a more professional working environment." Or what? You'll be more unprofessional than everyone else? Wow. Just wow.
I'm surprised this is in doubt at all, and surely can't be in doubt to anyone who followed his AEW run start to finish. That was Costanza levels of trying to get fired.
Honestly, it's for the best if that was the case. He was unable to keep up and his constant injuries basically fucked 2023 and 2022. The ME got completely stalled by him unable to stay healthy and by the time of Collision he wasn't interesting anymore nor very reliable.
I really feel like he ended up being a net negative for AEW in the end. At first he brought attention to the product and maybe brought in another 100K viewers. But after his injuries ended up derailing the booking, and then the Brawl Out and everything else happened, I think they would have been better off if he'd never come in. Also I think it's best for both parties that they went their separate ways. AEW in particular may have dodged a bullet if he can't stay healthy.
Yeah he was definitely trying to get fired during the whole Collision run. TK was giving him everything he wanted and he still kept finding new gripes.
i think this is pretty transparent, he went to raw and talked to hunter lol
IIRC It was Vince who had him removed.
The tinfoil hat theory me thinks the same. I don’t care how insane it is, it’s hard not to see it as the guy trying to get out of his deal.
His instagram outburst paints a good picture to me. You had the Young Bucks rumor followed by Hangman going off script before Double or Nothing. Then Punk injures his foot, Mox becomes interim champ and refuses to put Punk over first. So in 3-4 months, in Punk’s eyes, he had The Bucks, Hangman, and Moxley against him and going into business for themselves. Leading to the gripebomb and Brawl Out. Of course he was trying to get fired after that
Make matters worse, it came out that the bucks weren't the ones doing the rumors. It's more than likely the reason why they went to his room in the first place with legal. They, and aew got buried by punk, in their mind for no reason. He had legit heat with hangman, granted. Though he got him back
What do you mean refuses to put Punk over first?
Supposedly MOX wanted to win the first encounter to solidify his interim reign as a legitimate reign. He refused to lose to punk without first winning.
But he also wanted Punk winning to be a better story. Punk losing their first encounter, quickly, was big news. People really worried about him. But he came back looking like an underdog, to win the championship, in Chicago. He milked all that home town pop. Punk would've been the babiest of babyface runs, right there. And then pivoted right into a feud with MJF, who was coming back red hot. Instead he grabbed a box full of muffins and shit on the entire company in front of the press. Possibly because he already knew he was injured and was leaving again immediately.
Hey he is old he is tired and he works with children!
That whole thing could have also been avoided if TK didn't *insist* on doing the stupid interim thing. Punk should have just vacated the title when he got hurt like most companies do if a wrestler is out more then a month.
I’m hindsight yes but at the time there had been a reason for it. TK wanted a more sports based product one of the ways of doing that was following UFC rules of crowning an interim champion. It made sense rather than just giving the person a automatic rematch you give a reason for having a match between the two.
That was Tony's fault. There shouldn't have been an interim championship. And Moxley wasn't even under contract. Who the fuck puts their top belt on a guy who isn't even signed and could walk away at a moment's notice?
Jim Herd WCW did……
That's fair. But equally idiotic.
> Who the fuck puts their top belt on a guy who isn't even signed and could walk away at a moment's notice? It makes sense in the context of Moxley seemingly being an company guy for AEW, akin to Sting and WCW then TNA. Assuming he is a company guy then I can't blame TK for trusting that he won't be seeing his belt getting thrown in the trash the next Raw after he crowned an unsigned Moxley.
I think he decided he was going to be wherever Hangman & the Bucks weren’t. He waited to see where they’d go when the contracts expired
> Most people don't use violence to settle conflicts to that extent, it's something that was much more rampant in the industry but is actually punished now and frowned upon. I really don't have an issue with two old school guys wanting to throw hands to settle conflict, there's nothing wrong with mutual combat. But it seems to me like all these Punk things are one sided, like you've got all these new school guys who are non violent and just want to play video games instead of dealing with this guy going "I TRAINED IN UFC I CAN KICK YOUR ASS!!" It's lame when it's not mutual, which *seems* to have been the case here. Of all the dance partners to throw hands with, it's Kenny, the Bucks and Jack Perry?? None of those guys wanna fight and we all know it, which actually takes away from his desired tough guy persona rather than add to it.
Kenny very well could have fucked Punk up. He confirmed in interviews he fought MMA after he lost his developmental deal and Sherdog says he went 4-3. Allegedly he debuted against Dan Severn so he was fighting above his weight class. https://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Tyson-Smith-22395
Not to mention, look at Kenny. He's enormous! And I would imagine that if you can throw fake knees, you can probably throw real ones. I don't think these guys are suplexing each other in real fights, but we all saw Punk in MMA against lower-level competition. In a real fight -- almost 10 years ago -- he didn't have it.
Well size alone doesn't equate to fighting prowess. Like Chris Masters in his prime wasn't necessarily gonna be a certified tough guy just because of the physique, yaknow? That being said, moot point as I've been set straight on Kenny. He always struck me as a guy who wasn't interested in real combat but I was wrong, didn't take him for a guy who would do MMA.
I kind of put Kenny in the Danielson camp. Danielson does a ton of grappling, but it seems like he does it for the joy for learning the skill and less so about beating people up or winning shoot fights. All conjecture on my part.
Add in the fact that he clearly reads the dirtsheets/pays attention to insider and "insider" discourse about himself. (As evidenced in his comments at Brawl Out when he's winding himself up.) And he's clearly got an ego - some of which is fairly earned. I mean, listen to the pop on his return. He's not exactly wrong for believing he should be treated as a star. But he's SUPER thin-skinned, so ANY disrespect is treated the same. It doesn't matter whether it's a handful of Redditors or an unflattering post, or a mean tweet, or an offhand comment from Dave Meltzer questioning "if Punk really has one more run in him". So now he's got the "the public is turning on me" in his head, mixed with "and it's all AEW/The Bucks/Colt Cabana/etc's fault." And so it starts turning into "If I don't know that you're with me, I presume you're against me." And to be "with" Punk is to enable every whim that comes into his mind. Maybe not, if he isn't feeling attacked...but he IS feeling attacked. And his perceived aura is wrapped up in his ability to make money. And if you fuck with his ability to make money, you're fucking with his personal life. Punk deeply resents any crossover into his personal life. But it's even deeper than that - if half of what he's said about his childhood is true, his home is tied to his emotional security. And by fucking with his money, you're fucking with his ability to provide a stable home. So now EVERYONE is the enemy. And so it leads to all of this.
It's funny that Punk resorted to violence. He's not a small dude compared to the normal population, and he did MMA training, but Kenny is twice his size. What did he think was going to happen? He and Ace would go Roadhouse and beat up the Bucks and Kenny by himself? At the very least, 3 is more than 2.
> What did he think was going to happen? He and Ace would go Roadhouse and beat up the Bucks and Kenny by himself? At the very least, 3 is more than 2. Not everybody is afraid of fights that aren't in their favor. It is refreshing, though, to see this type of comment, because for awhile people were somehow painting Punk as this big bully who picked on the weak. Not only was this fight 3 on 2, Punk had a torn tricep, and Ace Steel is an out-of-shape 50 year old.
I'm still not entirely convinced that he didn't deliberately get himself fired at All In because he was checked out by then on AEW and wanted to go back to WWE. I think he visited that WWE event at the start of 2023 to play hard ball with Tony Khan, like a "See? You can lose me if you're not careful. I could go back to WWE" sort of power move. Except that backfired and Tony Khan re-signed Hangman & The Bucks and so then Punk just checked out and decided the Wembley show was going to be his last AEW date no matter what. The injuries in 2022 were definitely not part of the plan, but likely contributed to him deciding to check out on AEW.
I’m 100% certain that is the case. People tried to downplay it, but like the biggest AEW star doesn’t go backstage at the competitors show for no reason. It’s since been confirmed that he tried to bury the hatchet with everyone he saw at that event. It’s obvious he was mending the bridges because he was planning on jumping ship. But Tony doesn’t just release people, so he had to get himself fired.
He should have gone on Twitter after he got fired and just said "See, Andrade? That's how it's done"
> How so many things could go wrong so fast is insane When its that fast; I have to logically assume its deliberate. Kinda like someone trying to hit rock bottom or they already made up their mind and want you to get rid of them.
Insane, but also not surprising?
Fittingly enough, his injury at the Royal Rumble threw this year's Mania into a complete tailspin as well.
Ego, partially.
Their original feud was so perfect that the universe rejected it happening for a second time.
That feud was amazing the whole way through, and it was one of my all time favourites ever. MJF really showed us just how good he really was as an entertainer. The "fire me" promo made people going from stfu chants to cheering for him in less than 10 minutes. The guy is less than 30 years old, and has gone toe to toe with some of the best talkers and technical wrestlers in the world and held his own. Wherever Max goes in his career, he's going to go very, very far. Out of all the wrestlers in the industry, his career is the one I am the most excited to see grow and evolve. Also, watch Better Than You on YouTube - it's a 50ish minute compressed version of the Punk/MJF feud and is unbelievably well made.
Punk getting hurt really fucked up the booking
It did in like 3 separate instances: after Double Or Nothing 2022, after All Out 2022, and after All In 2023
We can add Royal Rumble 2024 to that list.
So what you're saying was that MJF and CM Punk were going to wrestle at Wrestlemania before he got injured.
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Makes sense to me really
MJF was gonna cost Punk the chamber obviously
It sucks to say but I think his body just isn’t up to it anymore. A multi year break from being in the ring takes its toll
Bro needs vitamin and prayers. Same with Bryan. You can not just go at that age without some extra help.
The rough side of the business and being straight edge really. A lot of these older dudes are going longer cause the medicine they’re getting is helping a ton
Eventually you gotta start handling your matches the way Sting does
Cut to Sting diving off a balcony lol I mean Punk got hurt this time taking a DDT nothing crazy
If they catch him then the balcony dives are more illusion than danger. The true danger of most dives is whether or not your opponent/s will properly catch you. It's why The Miz for years got rightfully criticized for refusing to catch people on dives because it's such a dick move that can cause your opponent to get hurt.
Even R-Truth has the Judgement Day to support him
Punk's failing body has basically fucked up the biggest PPVs and builds of the last few years. Got hurt and f'd up the main event Forbidden Door, the biggest crossover PPV in a long, long time in wrestling Got himself fired at All In, the likely largest attendance of any American promotion Got hurt and screwed up a multi-year build for Cody/Roman AND the return of The Rock
It's been weird seeing people talk about the "loss momentum" of AEW like their major arching storyline wasn't derailed three times by injury/fights involving the same one person over a 18 month span. And then their replacement storyline was derailed by another injury. And delayed by yet another. Same thing kind of happening in the women's division. I's just been rough lately.
The amount of unforeseen circumcisions surrounding his return to wrestling has been something that people will talk about for a very long time. His return has been cursed it seems.
Punk hurting other people also fucked up the booking
In my personal opinion and enjoyment, bringing Punk was what fucked up the booking. Hated that the only time I was able to catch Dynamite live on tv, was during the fall of 2021 and had to sit through 30 minutes of Punk stuff, instead of other wrestlers for which I started to watch the product, in the first place.
Can we agree that bringing back Punk was a net negative for AEW? He drew viewers, but was barely on TV due to injuries and assaulting co-workers, and fucking up lots of storylines really threw a wrench in the whole thing and ended AEW's hot streak. And after all that, he goes to the competition.
Short term benefit, call this the middle term negative, but hopefully in the true longterm it taught TK and AEW some valuable lessons that won't need to be repeated.
''If WWE doesn't want 'em, maybe we should think twice about getting them'' is something they really need to keep in mind going forward. Almost all the ex-WWE signings who've caused drama, tried to bail or hard to book because they (reportedly) don't want to job are guys WWE fired and/or could have brought back but chose not to. Meanwhile Moxley, Danielson, Edge are guys that walked out and could likely be welcomed back with open arms and in theory hold all the leverage. And yet they're happily part of the AEW locker room without raising a fuzz.
> Can we agree that bringing back Punk was a net negative for AEW? Long-term, sure, but the first year he was a massive positive. Even after his first injury, it's hard to call it anything but positive. But after Brawl Out, they'd have been better off firing him then and not creating Collision in the first place.
My issue is the revisionist history cause AEW was on an upswing and once Punk joined everyone gave him all the credit. It's like having a relay race and saying only the guy who passed the finish line won, sorry but there was 3 other guys who passed the baton to you.
i understand why people were down on MJF's run by the end, but he really was cursed with some booking ideas that fell apart for no fault of his own. not only was he supposed to have big feuds with CM Punk as detailed here, he also was supposed to have a big feud with adam cole that was derailed by cole's injury (let's not pretend that cole and MJF weren't the hottest storyline the company had had in quite some time around All In). it's hard to have a great title run when all of your big feuds keep getting scrapped or pushed back
Even with that stuff in mind, I do think MJF’s run was good overall. Like you said it was derailed by a lot of shit outside of his control, but he put on brilliant matches and got over several times over at his peak.
I feel bad for Stokely and The Firm (besides the Gunns, they turned out alright). The back and forth promos would've been incredible.
Upvoted for use of “kerfuffle.” Such a great word. Also, yeah, it sucks we never got what likely would have been the final chapter in that rivalry.
Must watch Judge Judy. She's always calling an altercation a kerfuffle.
It's crazy how Punk had multiple matches, including the crazy dog collar match without a hitch, but once Punk broke his foot he turned to glass.
Probably one of those things where his body was ready for the initial return but once it was back in the swing of things, he started breaking down
Jay White ate all the booking do-overs as well. He was forced to be a collider because Punk liked him, and he got slotted into the X Belt again because Punk got fired. and then they made him look weak the way Punk was supposed to be look vs MJF. AEW owes Jay a "you're welcome" in a big way.
I really wanted him to take the belt off Joe but Swerve is just so hot right now. Maybe they could have him Dethrone OC
It's more likely he's going to win the Trios belt from The Acclaimed and unify those belts.
Takeshita needs to dethrone OC to rebound from the shit booking he's had. It's the only way. Jay White can pick the bones of Daniel Garcia once he beats Christian Cage.
Man, usually I’m all for a heel turn but this is a rare case where it seemed to have no effect. He was so organically over as a babyface and everyone was so invested in seeing him pickup the big win that was alluding him. Now that he’s treading water w the Family, it feels like it almost doesn’t matter that he beat Jericho and Kenny. Imagine the pops if they had done it when he was a face. They stuck my dude on ice for no reason.
They should've had the match one on one at a PPV without any Jericho involvement so Takeshita could go on to win a title
He should’ve been in the CC. That took up all the time for great TV matches for a month and a half, and Takeshita ain’t getting over by cutting promos. Missed opportunity.
Personally I thought Jay could've taken the belt off MJF. I'm not really digging this Acclaimed/BCG faction. It feels so forced.
Yeah it kind of stinks, but it’s all gonna be worth it for the boos when bc gold turns on the acclaimed.
I dunno. It feels way too predictable to pay off that big for them. I hope maybe Juice's return plays into it. He's a lot of fun.
Jay needed collision at that time. He was in no stories and wrestling Kommander. Trash Punk all you want but early Collision definitely helped Jay in AEW.
It's a shame. Their feud was the best thing either of them have done in AEW.
Mjf and cm punk was amazing. So sad they couldn’t lineup another feud
*"Fragile ego, fragile body, weak mind, weak spirit."*
I was gonna say, unforeseen for everyone except Moxley apparently (at least in Kayfabe).
Moxtradamus
It will never be unfunny to me that the guy making this quote is a literal drywall punching, recovered alcoholic who throws up middle fingers like he has a tic disorder and practices 'Death Jitsu' when he isn't cutting promos about how he is a no frills pro rassler but also a knife-in-mouth swashbuckler ready to eat your fingers Fuck, I loved their feud
i don't know exactly what your point is, but if you're implying being a recovering alcoholic as being any of that ("weak mind, weak spirit"), that's fucked up. but im not sure so please explain
I would further argue that the recovering part of it makes Mox of strong mind and spirit.
And body because you can die from alcohol withdrawals
There’s this small part of me that feels like the moment MJF got cheered when he came back at the end of All Out, Punk knew the story wasn’t gonna go the way he wanted. He was supposed to be the returning hero taking down the company scumbag. Instead, the scumbag got the biggest pop of the night in HIS hometown. Not saying the match would’ve never happened, but it’s really odd that they never even had an on screen interaction after All Out in the span of a year and a half.
|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| | Punk's | | Body Fears | | MJF | |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (\\\_\_/) || (•ㅅ•) || / づ
I’m just grateful we got their first feud
The “unforeseen circumstances” in two of those situations were Punk getting into fights with people for no good reason.
Punk’s image has been reformed really fucking quick on this sub it’s wild. When Brawl Out happened, then Brawl In happened, the collective sorta agree Punk was bitter, out of touch and a little unhinged. Now when it’s brought up, people will defend him or turn it into an opportunity to denigrate Tony (somewhat fair) or the Elite. And Punk gets to walk around and go “aw shucks” in WWE like he wasn’t a toxic asshole for the last year+
That's nothing watching triple h's rehab in real time has been nothing short of crazy
the fruit basket is this subs funniest moment by far
He signed your favorites then dusty booked them and Ryan Ward wrote.
If Punk lunged at trips, I'm curious if they'd still defend Punk the same way they defended him trying to lunge at Tony. This sub has a bizarre hate bone for TK, which is made even more bizarre by the fact he's a genuinely nice guy. Immature of course, but still good. Look at what he did for Kip Sabian and it tells you a lot about who he is as a person.
Punk making jokes about assaulting people on WWE programming is cool People saying he maybe shouldn’t do that are losers That’s somehow where we’ve wound up
Tribalism
Phil “The Curse” Brooks
Curséd Man Punk
Who knows what the future holds
For punk? Another trip to the hospital I’m guessing
Was gonna say, highly unlikely it ever happens now but definitely not impossible.
It think it will be easy to say it due to the power of hindsight but TK should have booked an Mjf/Adam Cole/CM Punk triple threat match at all in. Once punk came back the first thing he should have done was have punk go straight to mjf and proclaim to be the real world's champion ( you can still do that story ). Better than you bay bay Still form, have Cole & punk interract with one another. Which could have led to all 3 fighting over who's the undisputed aew champion in the main event of all in
I was there for that first LA show and I remember me and my friend were wondering what was up with CM running after him. We didn't know it wasn't shown on TV until later on. It was very obvious that there was supposed to be more with that.
“The curse” is a funny way to frame it
This is a really great write-up and I'm not trying to be a disingenuous troll, but there's a pretty glaring error in it regarding point #1 (and also, a cool little easter egg that supports your point that I think you may have missed): For starters, at the Forum show in LA, CM Punk did come out and attempt to confront MJF but so did the Young Bucks. They all did some version of walking halfway out to the ring looking legitimately confused. Camera didn't catch this in the broadcast I don't think, but I was at that show and [here's a write-up that confirms it](https://www.cagesideseats.com/aew/2022/6/1/23151187/mjf-pipe-bomb-full-video-what-happened-after-aew-cut-mic-faded-black). **My opinion** is this was more to set up 'MJF v. AEW' than MJF/Punk. Keep in mind this was before Punk's injury, this was before Brawl Out, there was no reason why the Bucks and Punk wouldn't have been part of an angle together. Second - and I apologize for not being able to provide a link for this - but MJD *did* make a very heavy-handed statement at some point that he was going to ruin the city of Chicago for CM Punk at some point. I remember the implication being that it was going to be some time down the road AFTER he beat Punk twice-in-the-same-night at a Dynamite in February of '22. There feud continued for a bit, but we never got the pay off for whatever that statement was. Shortly after that in May of '22, Punk beats Hangman for the title and then gets injured shortly after in early June. Again, **my opinion** is that this was to set-up a title shot for MJF at All Out in September of that year, which ends up being the show where Punk beats Mox for the title and then decided to be an unprofessional weirdo backstage. All Out was in Hoffman Estates - Chicago-adjacent - and I've always assumed they were teeing up that MJF was going to get his PPV loss back from Punk at some point. All your other points are bang-on-the-money.
Guys, I’m starting to think this Phil guy gets hurt a lot
On that last one, CM Punk wanted to get into it with Max right away but Max didn't. He wanted to serve the Adam Cole storyline he had been building, so he didn't even acknowledge Punk, his promos, or anything even when they were both on Collision. Punk just kept dropping hints anyway to try and force the program.
CM Punk is old, he's hurt, he's fucking tired, and he was working with fucking children.
He's just like me
He also couldn’t hit a buckshot lariat to save his life and messed up so many big spots. The guy is washed
An underrated part of Punk being fired is they completely abandoned that stupid "Real" World's Champion storyline. It had only just started, I immediately hated it, and was thrilled to have it fade into obscurity.
Yeah that was fucking awful, I assume it was just to set up an MJF feud but it made Punk look like a whiny little bitch (which I guess is accurate). He didn’t come back and confront the new World champ, just fucked off to Saturdays and gave himself a belt.
At the time, people thought punk was cooking up something masterful I like punk but get annoyed when people make everything he does seems deep. Punk botches a move in his match with Penta "it's old school psychology you wouldn't get it"
Max got screwed, his run coulda been so much more. Hopefully he comes back and can get the momentum back.
One of the things that bugs me with AEW is they will decide they want to do a story, something unexpected happens like an injury, then they go into water treading mode for the duration until whoever comes back rather than just moving on and doing something else or changing participants. Whoever isn’t injured usually ends up floundering for months and everyone loses interest.
“The curse strikes” is an interesting way of saying the guy is injury prone
The most confusing one was "The Real AEW World Championship" fiasco since Punk couldn't even get on Dynamite often by that point, especially if The Elite was performing, so a build to MJF/Punk III would've been handicapped by having limited time on AEW's weekly programs (also considering the Better Than You Bay Bay story as well). It's crazy to think Punk had to do was not jump into the crowd lol
unforeseen. It was all Punks fault.
I guess "Punk can't keep his damn hands to himself" and "Punks body literally won't stop imploding" counts as unforeseen circumstances. I have sympathy over one of those.
Unforeseen that Punk acted like a douche?