Since his AEW debut in August, Jim Cornette has been critical of how AEW has booked CM Punk.
The former Midnight Express manager believes AEW has devalued the idea of CM Punk wrestling on television with matches against lesser-known stars.
Since facing Darby Allin at All Out, CM Punk has wrestled with Powerhouse Hobbs, Daniel Garcia, and Matt Sydal on AEW Rampage. Admittedly, the Second City Saint's star power exceeds his opponents.
New Champs in WWE! More RIGHT HERE
On the Jim Cornette Experience, the legendary booker said:
"It was August 20th when this program brought CM Punk back to pro wrestling after seven years and scored somewhere around 1.1-1.2 million viewers so it can happen. It's a valuable piece of television real estate, you can use it for good. We don't know what the ratings were last night yet, but the ratings of Rampage have been dropping. So the ratings have been going down on Rampage since Punk's debut. Now we expected that there would naturally be some drop because you have this once in a lifetime event, you can't do that every week. But now we've gone, basically half, last week was half. So basically, in two months they fell back to half of what Punk return show did and that has been with Punk wrestling. They were in a situation where one of the biggest stars in wrestling hadn't entered a ring in seven years and people were confused if they'll ever see him again and suddenly they get a big number. And after that, they wanna see CM Punk wrestle Darby Allin but since then, we've gone to Daniel Garcia, fine young man, we've gone to Matt Sydal, fine young man, who's next week? The lead singer of the Fine Young Cannibals? They've devalued the idea of watching CM Punk wrestling on television by making it too commonplace again people that, let's face it, everyone knows CM Punk is gonna beat Daniel Garcia, everyone knows CM Punk is gonna beat Matt Sydal," Jim Cornette said.
Who is CM Punk's next opponent in AEW?
CM Punk will wrestle on AEW Dynamite for the first time when he takes on Bobby Fish this Wednesday.
The match was set up on last Saturday's show when the Voice of the Voiceless saved Anthony Greene while Fish kept attacking him after winning the match.
Do you agree with Jim Cornette? Let us know in the comments below.
Please link the Jim Cornette Experience podcast with a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.