As previously noted, CM Punk made his AEW debut on the August 20th 2021 edition of AEW Rampage.
After the event, there was a media conference with Punk and AEW President Tony Khan talking about Punk’s singing with company:
Punk: “I don’t really know if you want to know how the sausage is made. One of the biggest appeals of AEW looks like they show up. Have a good time. You don’t want to know the terms of my contract. Just know that I’m here. It’s not a short-term thing and I’m here to help anyone that wants help.”
Khan: “We’re going to be doing this for a while. We’re excited. This isn’t a short-term thing or a part-time thing. This is full-time and we’re very excited.”
Punk continued:
“I’ll go ahead and spoil that I’ve been talking to Tony for probably a year and a half about this. Some girls are easy to get into bed. I am not. I need to do wined and dined. That’s not, ‘Oh I need more money and less dates’ and ‘oh I need this and I need that.’ It was literally just talking to Tony and getting to know him, and the more people that he employed that I knew, I’d ask them questions and they’d tell me things. I’ve been in the game for a few minutes, you know, so I’ve seen that. I think I traced it back to, especially since the downfall of ECW, every six months to a year, somebody pops up, ‘I have money, we’re gonna have TV and we’re going to use all the ECW guys.’ This is not a slight on Tony at all. It’s more of, it’s more of a slight at me being a paranoid, neurotic, anxiety-ridden, very careful person, and I wasn’t in a hurry. The pandemic kind of help that out, you know, and I knew I couldn’t debut if there’s no people in the building. So, I always say, timing is everything, and there were a lot of happy accidents along the way that made this possible.”
