Fightful Select have up a new report suggesting Jon Moxley could leave AEW if CM Punk returns:
Punk communicated to people familiar with the situation that he was not comfortable going through with the match on August 24 before he was fully cleared. Special travel arrangements were made to accomodate Punk on the day of the match and he floated the idea of additional pay over wrestling without being cleared.
There is heat between Punk and Mox, based on those Mox spoke to after All Out.
Jericho and Punk had a verbal fight after Brawl Out where Jericho called Punk a cancer and Punk shouted back.
Those in AEW believe that in a “Mox or Punk” situation, AEW would choose Mox.
Some heat on Punk over All Out has died down but a lot still remains.
Punk and Tony have been in contact and/or had a couple meetings. They were supposed to meet in February but that got delayed because of Jerry Jarrett’s funeral.
Those close to Punk initially believed he wanted out of his contract without a non-compete, which changed to wanting to go back/being open to coming back to AEW in the past weeks.
One person claimed Punk said he was willing to apologize over the media scrum portion of the night and had expressed some regret over his actions on that part. It is unkown if it would be a public or private apology, or who he would apologize to.
People close to Punk said he was originally going to pursue legal action however that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
Sources in AEW lost confidence that Punk would return after yesterday’s post. He’s currently still under contract.
Punk had a meeting with AEW officials over the Hangman promo before Double or Nothing, while Hangman just tried to stay out of the situation and move past it. Whatever came out of that meeting was not a satisfying resolution for Punk.
Punk should be cleared from his injured very soon. He originally expected to be cleared by late January.
New Brawl Out info:
Other talent were present at the brawl but did not get suspended as they were not physically involved.
A previously unrevealed production employee got struck with a chair.
Omega and Punk spoke had a brief conversation in the immediate moments following the brawl where Punk told him that “the issue wasn’t with him” but apparently did not speak more after that, as Punk was prepping for surgery and Omega had other plans. People said Omega was surprisingly composed after it all went down. Ace Steel was still being dealt with at this point.
NJPW did not know Punk was going to attend Battle at the Valley (Lars Frederiksen only told Rocky Romero that he was bringing “a friend”) and they quickly cleared up with AEW that there wasn’t any kind of conspiring going on.
