CM Punk’s First AEW T-Shirt Shatters Sales Records

CM Punk’s arrival in All Elite Wrestling last week also included free ice cream bars for everyone in attendance at Chicago’s United Center and a new shirt that crashed Pro Wrestling Tees’ website. Since then the merchandise store has confirmed Punk’s shirt, which hearkens back to his original “Best in the World” white shirt from 2011, has broken two records — selling the most shirts in a 24-hour span in the company’s history and becoming the highest-selling shirt in company history in a matter of three days.

The previous record-holder was the Bullet Club’s classic “Bone Soldier” design, which held the record for seven years. After opening AEW Rampage, Punk is expected to make his first AEW Dynamite appearance this coming Wednesday and will compete in his first match in an AEW ring against Darby Allin at the All Out pay-per-view.

Punk went into detail about what convinced him to join AEW in a post-show media conference call late Friday night. He explained, “I’ll go ahead and spoil that, I’ve been talking to Tony for probably a year and a half. Some girls are easier to get into bed, I am not. I need to be wined and dined. And that’s not, ‘oh I need more money and less dates.’ It was literally just talking to Tony, getting to know him. The more people that he employed that I knew, I’d ask questions, they’d tell me things. I’ve been in the game for a few minutes, so I’ve (promoters before). I’ve seen, I think I’ve tracked it since the downfall of ECW, every six months to a year somebody pops up (saying), ‘I have money, we’re going to have TV, we’re going to use all the ECW guys.’ This is not a slight on Tony at all, it’s more of a slight on me being a paranoid, neurotic, anxiety-ridden, very careful person.

“And I wasn’t in a hurry. The pandemic kind of helped me out. I knew I couldn’t debut if there was no people in the building. I always say timing is everything, and there were a lot of happy accidents along the way that made this possible,” he added.