The big rumor surrounding AEW over the past year was whether or not CM Punk tried to force Colt Cabana out of the company shortly after he arrived in the promotion. The issues between Punk and Cabana stem from legal disputes that go back a few years, resulting in the termination of their friendship. Cabana suddenly stopped showing up on AEW programming in November 2021 and aside from a few dark matches in March he had effectively been moved to the Ring of Honor roster. Punk vehemently denied him having anything to do with Cabana’s status with the company back in September, leading to the rant that caused a backstage fight with The Elite after the All Out pay-per-view that resulted in the firing of Ace Steel, The Elite getting suspended and Punk seemingly on his way out of the promotion.
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AEW President Tony Khan was directly asked about those rumors following this Saturday’s Full Gear pay-per-view, resulting in him echoing Punk’s statement in that the former AEW World Champion never tried to have Cabana fired — “No, no. He (Punk) never asked for that. He never asked for that.”
Cabana then suddenly returned to AEW on the Nov. 2 episode of AEW Dynamite to challenge Chris Jericho for the ROH World Championship. While many fans saw this as a shot at Punk for the “Brawl Out” incident, Khan claimed it was purely a booking decision based off Cabana’s wins on ROH pay-per-views.
“As far as the match with Chris in Baltimore, I thought it made a lot of sense because we had the Ring of Honor Championship Series and we talked about Chris Jericho wrestling so many of the great names in ROH,” Khan explained (h/t Wrestling Inc.). “When we’ve been booking the shows, I’ve been using Colt Cabana as both a coach and a wrestler in ROH. I looked at the ROH roster and Colt Cabana is a very logical challenger because not only has he held the ROH World Tag Team Championship but he’s also somebody who’s been wrestling in the new ROH, the 2022 ROH, and he’s undefeated.
However, there’s apparently plenty of skepticism from AEW wrestlers in the locker room about Khan’s claim of Punk’s innocence. He explained on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio (h/t WrestlingNews.co), “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.”
