At the Full Gear media scrum, AEW President Tony Khan addressed the popular belief that CM Punk wanted Colt Cabana to leave AEW soon after he arrived, and whether Punk requested Cabana be moved to ROH.
Cabana took a break for a few months and was not going to have his contract renewed unless the AEW locker room went to bat for him. Cabana signed a new contract, but was transferred to the ROH roster, and despite having a ROH presence on AEW programming, he was not used.
AEW brought back Cabana for a match against ROH World Champion Chris Jericho on a recent episode of Dynamite while CM Punk was on the sidelines due to injury and his involvement in the All Out brawl with The Elite, with the belief he is on his way out of the company.
On the Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned that many AEW employees are skeptical of Khan’s claims.
“The whole Cabana thing…I keep getting stuff from talent in AEW about this. Ever since Saturday, I’ve gotten a lot and, I mean, put it this way, there is a lot of talent that is very convinced of one thing. Obviously, CM Punk is – and he’s always been – very adamant that he had nothing to do with it. Tony said that he (Punk) had nothing to do with it. This was back in August, so that story is not going to change publicly one way or the other. The skepticism and its vehement from a lot of people, as far as the skepticism of that story. It’s not like that thing has been settled in the eyes of a lot of the talent. Even today, I just got something that was just like, ‘Can’t you just see? Isn’t it obvious?’. If you look at it from their standpoint…it’s not like they’re speculating. They believe that they know the story. That’s basically that, I’m sure that one will never go away.”
Meltzer went on to say that many people in AEW are adamant that Punk should not be brought back.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
