Colt Cabana hasn’t appeared in any recent AEW programming; instead, he has been used in ROH. Some people have speculated that CM Punk could be to blame for this situation.
Punk and Cabana had been the best of friends for years, but their friendship ended in November 2014 after Punk made an appearance on Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast. This was due to the fact that WWE doctor Chris Amann sued them as a result of Punk’s comments on the podcast. In the lawsuit that Cabana filed against Punk, he made the claim that Punk had broken his promise to pay for all of Cabana’s legal expenses. Despite Punk’s countersuit, both lawsuits were later dismissed.
There is also the theory that Hangman Page’s and Punk’s heated exchanges are partially caused by Cabana’s absence from television, which has been the subject of some speculation.
While promoting this weekend’s All Out pay-per-view event with Forbes, AEW President Tony Khan made it clear that CM Punk has had no influence whatsoever on the roster status of Colt Cabana.
“There is certainly a perception out there that I don’t think is accurate that when I purchased Ring of Honor and also [as] some of the contracts were coming up and I was starting to make moves—whether it was renewing them in most cases or not renewing them or in some cases reassigning people—there was a misconception that was perpetuated unfairly that CM Punk had anything to do with me wanting to move Colt Cabana to the Ring of Honor roster when his contract came up.”
Khan continued by pointing out that Punk had nothing to do with any of the contract offers he accepted or rejected.
“But in particular, I did pick up Colt Cabana’s contract and gave him a similar contract to do different work,” said Khan. “I don’t know if it was fair that that got perpetuated…I also didn’t think that was fair to Punk.”
Punk, who will challenge Jon Moxley for the AEW World Heavyweight Title in the main event of All Out, ripped a fan on Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite who was chanting for Cabana.
