CM Punk “S**t The Bed” Putting AEW Into “Freefall” Claims WWE Hall of Famer

AEW

Eric Bischoff’s negative opinion of CM Punk in AEW is well recorded and a recent interview has elaborated further on the topic.

Having previously described CM Punk as ‘old and fragile’, Bischoff casted doubt over the viability of a WWE return, questioning the business logic of such a move.

In a recent interview with Steve Fall for WrestlingNews.co, Bischoff was asked if WWE bringing back CM Punk would be a sound business choice, saying:

“I don’t think it would be.

“I think CM Punk s**t the bed.

“When Tony Khan brought CM Punk into AEW, he still had that mystique, the pipe bomb mystique.

“He was this character that stood up to McMahon and then walked away.

“There’s a rebellious quality in that character that I think the average American admires.

“So Punk had this mystique and still had his fan base and Tony Khan was able to take advantage of that.”

Exploring CM Punk’s contribution to AEW after his much anticipated debut on August 20, 2021, Bischoff explained:

“Over a very short period of time, that mystique began to just dissipate.

“It was like letting the air out of the balloon a little bit more each and every week.

“CM Punk came in, and you know, great ratings, and then literally the next week, started in a free fall back down to pre-Punk levels.”

Analysing this from a purely business approach, Bischoff referred to AEW’s ratings as proof of Punk’s lack of appeal, stating:

“You look at where AEW is in terms of week to week ratings, which is the only thing we have to measure that’s public because the financial information is all private.

We don’t really hear anything about the real financial information.

We just get the top line stuff.

But you know, ratings are the data that we have that we can go, ‘Okay, this is where this product is going.’

Flatline.

Shortly after CM Punk got there, flatline to pre-Punk levels and I think that a lot of that has to do with, people came, they were excited because of the aura and the mystique, they saw, and they went, ‘Eh, not so much. A little bit, but nothing special.’ 

It wasn’t just Punk’s lack of impact that drew comment from Bischoff, with the post-All Out media scrum and its aftermath playing into his logic:

“Then for Punk to conduct himself in the manner in which he did, I think it left a bad taste in not only the fans mouths, but why would anybody want to hire a guy that’s willing to, live, publicly disparage the guy that’s writing him a check every week?”

During the pre-Full Gear media call, Tony Khan wouldn’t clarify the status of CM Punk in AEW.

There have, however, been rumors of a potential contract buyout.

However, the recent Colt Cabana return to AEW has reportedly ‘only made things worse’ between both parties.

Transcript from WrestlingNews.co

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• eric bischoff
• cm punk
• AEW

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