News

Backstage news and notes regarding CM Punk’s debut with AEW at Rampage

Aaron Rift

As previously noted, CM Punk made his AEW debut on the August 20th 2021 edition of AEW Rampage.

Here are some news items regarding Punk’s debut…

* Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com noted that “it’s being seen within TNT that Punk has joined ‘their team’ and they are considering potential ideas for him beyond AEW.”

* Living Colour’s Cult of Personality was always the plan for CM Punk’s AEW entrance music. (via Johnson)

* The belief is that Punk will be focusing on being an “AEW guy” but is open to doing things with other wrestling promotions. (via Johnson)

* Darby Allin as Punk’s first opponent was said to be the idea of AEW President Tony Khan. (via Johnson)

* Johnson stated that there was a strict “no talent backstage if they didn’t work for the company” policy to avoid anything leaking to the internet. Despite this, Punk was said to have arrived to the building hours in advance and was mingling with people in full sight.

* In 12 hours, the AEW tweet announcing that Punk is “All Elite” has over 50,000 retweets. In the same time period, the YouTube video of Punk’s entrance received over 2 million views.

* It’s being said that Punk’s idea to give away free ice cream bars after the show was inspired by Andy Kaufman who once took out an entire audience for milk and cookies. (via Johnson)

Wrappers from the bars were being sold on eBay…

* The AEWShop.com website crashed for a period of time after Punk’s debut. There was a commemorative t-shirt being sold at the arena with very long lines of fans trying to purchase it.

* Brian Pillman Jr. and other wrestlers watched Punk’s entrance from the side of the stage…