CM Punk's return to wrestling in August 2021 seemed like a watershed moment for the industry. Unfortunately, his AEW tenure ended in disaster when he was released just two years later.
It seems that many of the issues regarding CM Punk began in May 2022, during the build to his match against 'Hangman' Adam Page for the AEW World Championship at that year's Double or Nothing pay-per-view.
During an infamous on-screen segment on the May 25, 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite, Hangman Page cut a seemingly innocuous promo against The Second City Saint that would ultimately taint Punk's relationship with the company, as well as the perception of its most hardcore fans.
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Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour today, Punk addressed the controversial segment, claiming that he and Page had hammered out the promo beforehand, with Hangman then going off-script:
Corey Graves deleted his Tweet! More details HERE.
"If I'm working with you, and we sit and talk... I was very gracious and hammered out the promo. Then he goes on live TV and says none of the stuff we talk about. I can't hear him cause the crowd is so loud. My responses matter. Why would you do this? TV is very expensive. And you just sh*t on, and sh*tting on the business."
CM Punk further claimed that he had to fight the urge to physically take Page down. He spoke to AEW President Tony Khan afterward and said that something needed to be done:
"I had to fight just double-legging him. I was a professional, though. I asked him, 'Why did you do that?' And he thinks I got one of his friends fired that wasn't fired. And I went to Tony and the lawyers and said, 'You have to fix this. Otherwise, I will fix it.'"
The bad blood between Hangman and CM Punk ultimately led to the infamous 'Gripe Bomb' at All Out 2022's post-show media scrum, which then resulted in Punk's backstage altercation with The Elite – the first of two backstage fights that led to his release one year later.
