While speaking to the media after the 2021 AEW Full Gear PPV, CM Punk commented on the AEW audience:
“I definitely think there’s overlap. I don’t know if everybody who is a WWE fan came over here specifically just to watch me. But what I recognize in front of an AEW audience is an audience that I used to wrestle in front of prior to the [WWE], it’s the wrestling fans.”
“I will never understand the criticism of appealing to your fanbase. If this is our fanbase, we give them what they want, everybody’s happy. Now I understand building a business and, people talk about trying to get casual viewers – I don’t think there’s casual wrestling fans anymore, my opinion. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe somebody in TNT’s gonna get mad I’m saying this – our fans are wrestling fans, and we give them wrestling.”
