CM Punk On How Darby Allin Was Chosen To Be His First Opponent In AEW

It’s been almost a year since CM Punk joined AEW and returned to professional wrestling. Since his return Punk has faced many different wrestlers from the AEW roster, but his comeback all started with Darby Allin.

During an appearance at San Diego Comic Con the current AEW World Champion spoke with 411mania.com about his return, and he explained how Darby Allin ended up becoming his first opponent in All Elite Wrestling.

“I had discussions with Tony about who I wanted it to be, and then he threw out the name Darby, and I was like, ‘Oh. Interesting.’ And to me coming back I didn’t necessarily want to wrestle the good guy, right? But everything just kind of made sense. You know, Tony said, ‘Trust me. Darby’s the guy.’ And I was like, ‘Ah, interesting.’ You know and him being with Sting was kind of a strange dynamic, but it was one of those things that was just wild enough and crazy enough and it was something that I didn’t initially think of. So, I was like, ‘Oh cool.’

“I think it’s important to be receptive, right? Like I had this idea of what I wanted to do and having a boss in a company in a situation where you can have discussions, it’s not just like, ‘Oh, you’re doing this. This is your name, and this is your entrance music. Go out there and do this.’ We came up with, to me, what wound up being perfect. You know, you can watch that back, and you can’t tell me that there was anybody else better for CM Punk to come back and start the renaissance of his career with.”

CM Punk defeated Adam Page at Double or Nothing back in May to become the new AEW World Championship, but unfortunately he announced a few days later that he would be taking time off due to injury. Stay tuned for more updates on CM Punk’s return as they become available.