After weeks of rumors AEW officially announced their new show Collision today, but CM Punk’s name was noticeably absent from the announcement. Punk has been rumored to be the star of the show although his AEW return has yet to be confirmed by the company. However, Jimmy Traina of SI pointed out that a cached version of the press release announcing Collision originally included CM Punk’s name.
Here's an interesting one for the wrestling fans: AEW's press release on their new show says, "will feature headliners including Thunder Rosa, Miro, Samoa Joe, Powerhouse Hobbs and Andrade El Idolo." Their email, though, and link to the release, mentioned CM Punk. Hmmm…. pic.twitter.com/gBxbHisvOY
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) May 17, 2023
Many outlets picked up on this, and Warner Bros. Discovery issued the following statement to Connor Casey of Comicbook.com regarding CM Punk’s status:
“CM Punk is not affiliated with TNT’s AEW Collision.”
Comment from WBD to @ComicBook — "CM Punk is not affiliated with TNT's AEW Collision." #AEW
Read on for more: https://t.co/GLn447pahC
— Connor Casey (@ConnorCaseyCB) May 17, 2023
Fightful Select is now reporting that there are still plans for CM Punk to return to AEW, and he was actively included in the press release until this morning. Fightful was also told that there are, “active content plans with Punk as of this week,” but it was noted that could change.
CM Punk has reportedly had regular contact with Tony Khan, and it’s being said that he didn’t want to be announced for Collision well ahead of time, but it’s not clear that played a role in him being removed from the press release. Punk is also pushing for Ace Steel to be brought back to AEW, and he was said to have been keen on FTR and Andrade being part of Collision. It’s not clear if Ace Steel will be brought back.
AEW has yet to announce the location for the debut episode of Collision, but the working plan is to hold it at the United Center in Chicago.
