WWE Rumors: Details of CM Punk's face-to-face meeting with AEW Executive revealed
It's 2019 and CM Punk is finally back to the WWE. Well, kind of.
The former WWE Champion appeared during the closing moments of WWE Backstage and declared that he was back 'to change the culture'
Bryan Alvarez revealed on the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Live that Punk had a meeting with Tony Khan with regards to joining AEW before he accepted the Fox deal.
It is unsurprising to note that AEW did offer Punk a lot of money, however, he instead ended up signing a deal to appear on Fox' FS1 show for WWE.
Alvarez also went on to share his theories regarding Punk's future now that he is back on WWE programming,
"Now, what I can tell you with negotiations with Punk are that Punk did, in fact, negotiate with AEW. I know that Punk's story, I don't even know what his story is now but I know that the story he gave indicated like they (AEW) sent me some texts and it was this and it was that.
CM Punk met in person with Tony Khan about AEW and they offered him a lot of money, and he ended up doing this WWE on Fox gig.
Now, what does that mean? I don't know. It could mean that CM Punk does not, in fact, have any interest in actually wrestling. It could be that CM Punk wants to continue doing what he's doing in his life. He's over the in-ring aspect of it, he was given a great deal to not even work every week! They made it abundantly clear that he is not a host of this show. He is a special contributor who will be making appearances on a regular basis. He's not even going to be there every week, so it could be, Fox has got a lot of money. It could be that Fox offered him a ridiculous amount of money to occasionally show up as a contributor for a show on FS1 and he took the money and that's what he's doing.
It could be that CM Punk does, in fact, want to wrestle, and he knows that at this point with WWE's new television deals, they are going to offer him a ridiculous amount of money to wrestle. I don't have exact numbers, okay, but, the amount of money WWE is paying people for Saudi Arabia is astounding. It's astounding what people are making to do Saudi Arabia! Maybe he wants to come back for the Saudi Arabia deal."
Last week's episode of WWE Backstage garnered dismal ratings and getting Punk back is being viewed as a step taken to boost the viewership figures of the FS1 show.
CM Punk will appear on next week's episode, however, he will only work a select few dates as a special contributor and analyst on the show that is hosted by Renee Young and Booker T.
Will this lead to an in-ring return of The Best in the World? The only thing we can do now is to keep our fingers crossed and hope that the 41-year-old does indeed lace up his wrestling boots again.