CM Punk is back in the WWE and it's awesome for them.
Not for AEW though.
Here's how this works. Almost a decade ago, CM Punk swore off professional wrestling. Then, AEW happened and obviously, they had to get the biggest free agent on American soil. CM Punk returned and every time he makes his "first time," whether it's Dynamite, Rampage, Collision, or one of their pay-per-views, his feuds with the other AEW youngbloods, the ratings spike, and the wrestling outlets go apeshit.
And Punk really hated WWE - basically leading the AEW team when their product was awesome. Yes, I hated all the bumps and the camera angles where you can see the wrestlers gingerly going to the spot where a good guy wrestler goes for a suicide dive, but I recognize the fact that they were good back then. Punk and Bryan Danielson were helping the other guys level up their game - with the likes of MJF, Darby Allin, Sami Guevara, and Ricky Starks feeding off of their experience.
With that said the events from All Out and All In sent Punk packing.
Now, it's payback time.
The interest in Will Ospreay is basically a McGuffin and in some ways, you can see this move as Adam "Edge" Copeland, Ric Flair, and Ospreay going to AEW with WWE getting the rights to Jade Cargill and CM Punk and this is hella big for WWE because not only are these stars heavily-anticipated, it's also lining up on The Road to Wrestlemania.
This is the proverbial nail in the coffin for AEW's run of good things. Of course, Punk will have beef. For sure, he's also going to piss people in the locker room. With that said, if AEW didn't pursue Punk, they wouldn't be in this predicament.
And here's the thing - Survivor Series happened in Chicago. When Tony Khan first introduced Punk, he was always at the start of the episode to quell the chants. In WWE, he was basically the surprise - like how The Undertaker was when NXT outperformed AEW a couple of months ago.
Also, how can AEW return to Chicago? The city is one of their biggest sites and most of their best moments happened there. They can't go there and just drown the CM Punk chants.
And come to think of it, another great WWE McGuffin is drowning the CM Punk chants.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!
Yes, WWE has this thing of phasing out their established stars once their expiry date is almost there but Punk is a very solid name and as what they are doing with LA Knight, what the crowd wants, the crowd will get. And it's not like AEW is doing better with the old WWE stars with the improper use of the Hardy Boyz, as well as the lack of push in Andrade, Claudio Castignoli (Cesaro), and Miro (Rusev.) Even Bryan Danielson is losing steam because he already faced a lot of AEW's up-and-comers and it was on free TV.
Again, I am not a fan of AEW souping up their episodics because it makes their pay-per-views flat. Meanwhile, WWE makes their episodics flat to make their premium live events stand out. I will always love a good ending from a bad buildup because "the end justifies the means."
Giving away Randy Orton's return was a very nice way to insert CM Punk's re-debut.
It also brought back old NXT PPVs where Triple H would introduce new feuds.
I can't wait to see what they have in store for Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania.
This is awesome!