CM Punk revealed during the post-Rampage media scrum that he had been talking to AEW president Tony Khan for over 18 months before finally agreeing to make his pro wrestling return for the promotion. This raised the question as to what made the former WWE champion change his mind.
Punk was asked if he was waiting for AEW to prove themselves before making the decision later in the session. Replying to the question, the former WWE star claimed that it wasn’t about AEW proving themself and more about the two parties getting familiar with each other:
“I mean who am I? Nobody has to prove anything to me. It wasn’t about them having to prove anything to me. It was about me being open to the idea. And then it wasn’t gonna be ‘well I am gonna jump into the pool right away’, I had to dip my toe in and see how things are gonna be.”
Punk went on to credit Renee Paquette for bringing him back into the wrestling fold with the WWE backstage gig, saying that it opened his eyes:
“Actually, this is all Renee Paquette’s fault honestly. She is the one who got me to come back to do the backstage thing and it opened my eyes to like ‘okay, this is fun, she is a good person. I like working with good people’. That’s really all it was, nobody had to prove anything to me. But I did take a wait-and-see approach. And I waited and I liked what I saw.”
Paquette later replied to these comments from him on Twitter. She posted a GIF in reply to Punk’s comments, saying ‘you are welcome’:
CM Punk made his triumphant return to pro wrestling last night on Rampage. He has already set up his first match in over 7 years and has been announced for this Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite.
