CM Punk reflects on 1 year return anniversary
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| photo credit: AEW |
August 20, 2021. This was a night the majority of pro wrestling fans thought would never happen.
AEW. Rampage. Friday. August 20th. 2021. This was the night that shocked the wrestling audiences to their core. CM Punk returned to wrestling.
CM Punk left a huge mark on the wrestling world with his historic runs in Ring of Honor and World Wrestling Entertainment throughout his storied career.
Punk left the wrestling world in 2014, feeling burned out and essentially losing his passion for the wrestling industry. He left and claimed to NEVER come back... at least in WWE's world.
BUT... in 2019, a new challenge came along. All Elite Wrestling. With this, this opened the wrestling world to a new, strong alternative to WWE, in which most fans that left when Punk and some other wrestlers did, started to fall in love with the industry again.
With the significant rise of AEW, came a lot of opportunities within. CM Punk ended up being one of them. The start of Summer 2021, rumors started to swirl... and I mean... swirl of a strong possibility of a CM Punk wrestling return. Not with WWE... with AEW.
August 20, 2021 came. LIVE from Chicago. The hometown of Punk. The show opened to a MASSIVE CM Punk chant that didn't die down for pretty much the whole show. Then... that music hit.
There he was. The Man, The Myth, The Pipebomb. He's back.
Since then, Punk has had some stunning match-ups, promos and now a World title run. It's been a solid return to form for Punk, who started to doubt if he could even pull it off at this stage of his life (and career). Turns out... he had what it took. Crazy.
Now, 1 year later. Punk reflects on his time in AEW.