Big Change To CM Punk WWE Status After Championship Win

Published: Jul 10, 2026 by Liam | Last Updated: Jul 10, 2026 by Liam

Liam has been reporting & analyzing wrestling news for over eight years, and is currently the Managing Editor at WrestleTalk.com. Immersed in wrestling for 18 years, he has over 11,000 published articles in addition to leading and overseeing WrestleTalk.com's coverage.

Big Change To CM Punk WWE Status After Championship Win

A big change has been made official regarding the WWE status of CM Punk following his Undisputed Championship win.

On WWE Raw in his hometown of Chicago this past Monday, Punk returned for his first match since WrestleMania 42, replacing Cody Rhodes in the WWE Title main event against Sami Zayn and defeating Zayn to win the title.

Despite this taking place on Raw, the Undisputed WWE Championship is officially allocated to the SmackDown brand, while Roman Reigns’ World Heavyweight Championship is the official top title of Raw.

This meant that Punk, who had been a Raw star since his 2023 WWE comeback, was now holding SmackDown’s major championship.

In a change confirmed today, CM Punk has now been moved on the WWE website from the Raw roster to the SmackDown roster, so SmackDown is now his official home.

Punk did share his upcoming WWE schedule yesterday, which included numerous SmackDown appearances and none on Raw, in addition to Saturday Night’s Main Event on July 18 and some untelevised live events.

The main event scene on SmackDown now consists of Punk, Rhodes, Zayn and GUNTHER, with Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton both absent since WrestleMania but still listed on the blue brand as things stand.

More Big Changes To The WWE Roster

With that aforementioned SmackDown main event scene gaining CM Punk, the Raw roster loses one of its top stars and may need some additions of its own.

Currently, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins – who have a match at WWE SummerSlam for Reigns’ World Heavyweight Championship – are the only outright established main eventers on the show.

Oba Femi is waiting in the wings once he presumably defeats Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam, and there are some other names like LA Knight, Bron Breakker and Jey Uso who are there or thereabouts, but not on the Reigns and Rollins level.

Raw could potentially make use of the two names currently absent from SmackDown when they return, McIntyre and Orton, to freshen things up when they’re back.

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