CM Punk Fired

[sek69]

 

[sek69]

Overdue imo, and I say that as a fan of his who marked out big for his return. Clearly he was not fitting in with the locker room and it's the better move to get rid of one guy rather than pissing off everyone else in the locker room. 

[C.S.]

For all of CM Punk's issues, and there were many, no one on the AEW roster - not The Elite, not Hangman Page, certainly not Jack Perry - was a bigger draw and a more charismatic and compelling personality.

Whether you like Punk or not, this is a massive loss.

Cody was right to bail when he did.

The children have won!

[The Thread Killer]

AEW has a “Discipline Committee?!”

They are clearly doing a bang up job.

[Coffey]

Unbelievable. Totally & completely. 

Some various thoughts & rambling.

I feel like I should have probably seen the writing on the wall when Cody Rhodes left AEW to go back to WWE, citing that his decision was largely based on a differing opinion of what he wanted professional wrestling to be. He wanted a more storyline driven, Mid South style wrestling & AEW is apparently a more in-ring athletic competition promotion.

I have never been a fan of the Young Bucks style of professional wrestling & I realize that from the jump, that's what AEW was. I was excited for another U.S. based promotion that could lead to competition in the wrestling landscape that would, hopefully, lead to both companies trying their best to put on the best show possible. AEW doesn't happen without The Elite, so I get it. 

C.M. Punk was the biggest star AEW had. To date, I think his AEW debut was the biggest single moment in the company. It's lunacy to me that they would fire their biggest star... but I get it. He's a headache. They're choosing the likes of The Elite & Jack Perry & that style of wrestling. I do think that maybe this could have a domino effect & we could see other people like FTR leave AEW as well. With it almost all of my interest in the company too. I thought that Collision was going to be more my speed. The more old school wrestling, with the likes of guys like FTR, Punk, Joe, Miro, Andrade & Brody King. With Punk gone now, it's only a matter of time until it's just another Dynamite with Garcia dancing, Mox bleeding, Orange Cassidy existing & Young Bucks flipping. But I'm sure we can get another Canadian Destroyer off of a ladder through a table for a 2-count & the crowd chanting "this is awesome." No thank you. 

[kaufman316]

Either a brilliant work or a lame shoot, I think.

[El-P]

Good fucking riddance. Long overdue indeed. He should have been fired just after the media scrub disaster.

Also, people wanted TK to act like bossman ? Well, he just cut CM Punk with not one, but TWO shows, one being a PPV (and for obvious reasons their weakest one ever, but that' pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things) at the fucking United Center. He don't give a flying fuck.

Also, if I'm Lesveque I'm like "Yeah, no, thanks, we actually have a really successful, drama free thingy going on, I'll pass on that one". Plus, Cody is the one designated (for now) to beat the tribal chief, and Cody IS part of the Elite, he's still tight with the Bucks.

Now really, all I want is Hangman Page getting Punk's spot feuding with Ricky Starks, at least I'll get really good matches out of it and not overlong dull affairs with tribute spots galore.

This week has been crazy, for awful reasons (Terry & Bray passing away), awesome reasons (the All In show), and hilarious reasons (yet another drama involving CM "I'm doing business here, this is a drama free environment" Punk leading to THIS). Pro-wrestling in a nutshell. Life in a nutshell.

 

[Jmare007]

1.- I get it, though I don't agree with it in the sense that this was a last resort move that could've been avoided sooo many fucking times that it's very hard to accept this outcome and not be bummed out about it.

2.- Punk was a moron and behaved like a 43 year old adolescent so I don't feel bad for him. I'm bummed because he could still give us an interesting wrestling product and we are not gonna see it in a company that badly needs his level of understanding and vision of pro wrestling.

3.- The side that "won" is just as bad as Punk and this firing will not solve the glaring issues AEW has backstage. I feel like Punk played into the hands of the people he resented in the company, he did exactly what they were expecting and in the end he lost.

4.- A lot of us were weary of making Collision "the Punk show". I thought injuries were gonna be the thing fucked those plans but him being fired is even worse. The fuck you do that with that time slot?

5.- How long before we get the "tell all" podcast with Nick Hausman? Phil is gonna unload and a portion of the AEW fanbase will not know what to do with themselves.

6.- How long before someone shows up and asks if this some super well thought out "work"? EDIT: oh shit, it already happened! LMAO

[Zoo Enthusiast]

Good riddance.  A dark cloud over the company for a year already. 

[NintendoLogic]

The phrase "wrestler and employment agreements" is jumping out at me. Did Punk have a role in the company beyond being an in-ring performer? I'm thinking maybe he was supposed to be the bad cop who would keep the talent in line while taking the heat off TK but he ruined it because no one told him you can't just choke your problems away.

[Embrodak]

This pretty much kills whatever flagging interest I still had in AEW, as I really do not like any of the creative other than what they’ve been doing with Punk, but when I read that Punk had chewed Tony out and picked a big fight with him, I figured this was inevitable, if not now then later.

There’s really no company remotely suited to Punk other than WWE, who I assume do not want anything to do with him, so this pretty much has to be it for him, no? One of the oddest codas in wrestling history, for sure.

[Jmare007]

19 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

There’s really no company remotely suited to Punk other than WWE, who I assume do not want anything to do with him, so this pretty much has to be it for him, no? One of the oddest codas in wrestling history, for sure.

WWE should offer him a 3 month per appearance deal were they get the benefits of him coming back, creating buzz, having a big angle to set up a big match at a PLE and then send him back home before he gets any ideas of him having a bigger role in the company (or starting shit because he thinks other people shouldn't have certain pushes or positions). Basically, make some good money for a short run and let him go quickly before he ruins it.

[pmo]

Good luck on the with cause.  Punk is likely litigious MFer and that's probably going to bring to light somethings they probably don't want brought to.  Also hope they got the belt back...

As for me Punk and his story lines are only thing that remotely caught my interest.  Between this and bottling Fulham's transfer window TK is on my shit list this week.

[KawadaSmile]

It's as simple as this: just when they think they got the answers, he changes the culture. 

 

Fulham getting trounced by that Norwegian cyborg, WWE Jacksonville Jaguars belts being sold and now this. What a week for Montana Khan.

[Embrodak]

12 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

WWE should offer him a 3 month per appearance deal were they get the benefits of him coming back, creating buzz, having a big angle to set up a big match at a PLE and then send him back home before he gets any ideas of him having a bigger role in the company (or starting shit because he thinks other people shouldn't have certain pushes or positions). Basically, make some good money for a short run and let him go quickly before he ruins it.

Vince is back in charge, and he’s on record as saying Punk is someone he can’t work with. I don’t see it happening.

 

Also NJPW can’t really pick him up if they’re going to keep having an ongoing relationship with AEW, can they? He’s pretty fucked, unless he wants to go to Impact or MLW and try to build them up as serious competitors just out of spite.

[KawadaSmile]

DDT is his one true calling and I'm not even joking.

[strobogo]

1. lmaoooooooooooo. 2 years is longer than I thought he'd last, although 10 months of that was injured/suspended

 

2. Hopefully some of the drama and discourse can die down

 

3. Looks like Jungle Jack just found himself another outlaw championship

[NintendoLogic]

13 minutes ago, pmo said:

Good luck on the with cause.  Punk is likely litigious MFer and that's probably going to bring to light somethings they probably don't want brought to. 

Is he, though? The most prominent lawsuit he was a part of was one in which he was the defendant. Regardless, the fact that AEW terminated him for cause rather than buying out his contract means they likely have him dead to rights and any litigation would be an open-and-shut case in their favor.

[MLB]

18 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

Vince is back in charge, and he’s on record as saying Punk is someone he can’t work with. I don’t see it happening.

Where is Vince on record saying that? Austin's podcast? 

[KawadaSmile]

I don't see CM Punk wanting to return to WWE, nor the Fed trying to get him back. Rollins and Reigns were vocal about his distaste for the man, so even if VKM or Trip were willing to play ball, it's not like he'd be seen much differently in the locker room. 

[Zoo Enthusiast]

13 minutes ago, NintendoLogic said:

Is he, though? The most prominent lawsuit he was a part of was one in which he was the defendant. Regardless, the fact that AEW terminated him for cause rather than buying out his contract means they likely have him dead to rights and any litigation would be an open-and-shut case in their favor.

I assume they have the incident on tape, as they did with Brawl Out.

[Embrodak]

7 minutes ago, MLB said:

Where is Vince on record saying that? Austin's podcast? 

It was in the Observer in 2020, so I guess not actually on the record, I misremembered the details.

Anyway, guess I’ll just go back to watching old shit and catching YouTube clips from the Fed. Hasta la vista, Punk, you got me to watch a thing I wasn’t otherwise especially interested in.

Re: “with cause”, Punk pulled this shit in gorilla, no? With Tony Khan right there? Punk would have to make a pretty strong fucking case for a hostile work environment degrading his mental state, and given his history of hotheadedness, I don’t think he would be successful.

[C.S.]

3 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

degrading his mental state

I've been wondering ever since the media scrum and "Brawl Out" aftermath if Punk is mentally okay. 

I hope he is, and with his wife being a mental health expert, that would be something she'd probably be more attuned to.

Still though...

[Childs]

With Danielson injured and Punk gone, what remains is not a compelling product. That's not to say TK was wrong to sever what seemed to be an increasingly toxic relationship. But it's an invitation for me to stop watching, at least for awhile.

[MLB]

10 minutes ago, KawadaSmile said:

I don't see CM Punk wanting to return to WWE, nor the Fed trying to get him back. Rollins and Reigns were vocal about his distaste for the man, so even if VKM or Trip were willing to play ball, it's not like he'd be seen much differently in the locker room. 

"You probably have some kind of feelings. I know I do. Despite doing one of these things, he made my job a lot harder five/ten years ago. I don't like the guy, I don't know many people that do, but I'm willing to put business first. He'd probably have to be slapped around a few times to get his mind right." - Roman Reigns in 2020.