Photo: CM Punk Spotted Publicly for the First Time Since AEW All Out, Injury Confirmed

CM Punk hasn’t appeared on AEW programming in any capacity since the All Out pay-per-view and the infamous rant he gave during the post-show press scrum. He has also been radio silent on social media, which made it all the more surprising when a photo of him with a fan popped up on Twitter early Monday morning. Punk’s left arm had a brace on it, confirming the surgery-requiring injury he suffered during his match with Jon Moxley at the pay-per-view. 

Numerous reports of what happened between Punk, The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Ace Steel in Punk’s locker room, though AEW President Tony Khan has refrained from commenting as an investigation remains ongoing. Everyone involved in the incident, even the backstage officials who tried to break up the fight, were suspended and The Elite & Punk were stripped of the championships they won earlier that night. Many of those suspensions have since been lifted, but while Omega and The Bucks are still waiting for their suspensions to end it’s still unclear if Punk is even going to remain with the company once his arm heals.

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Khan was on Busted Open Radio last week and opened up about what he learned from the entire All Out weekend debacle — “Don’t forget that you have great people around you. No matter who you are, there are people around you. Everyone has different situations, family, friends, people at work, people at school, but don’t forget there are people who care about you and want to see you succeed. We had a lot of stuff happening, but there are a lot of great people at AEW that want to make the company go and no matter what the problem is, those are people who want to be here and make the company work.”

“Before the Tournament of Champions, a lot of people in the tournament stepped up and said, ‘I don’t care what’s happening, I love this place, I love you and I want to make it great. I’m here for whatever you need,’” Khan continued. “To hear those words of reassurance from people like Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho, and Bryan Danielson means a lot. Having a lot of people return, no matter what you think of them, having people who were away, their returns mean a lot. Samoa Joe, who is one of the biggest stars of all time and is a great presence in the locker room, it’s great to have him back. Even MJF, who has made a big difference on TV, I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do think the wrestling fans love to see MJF on shows and it makes a big difference for AEW and Dynamite when he’s there. It’s really been about the fans rallying around AEW and the wrestlers and staff rallying. We’ve seen people do it time after time, whether it was the pandemic lockdown, some of the challenges we faced, the absolute low point of this company when Mr. Brodie Lee was sick, on the verge of passing, and when he passed, rallying around him and his family. That is the most serious example we’ve ever faced and really, compared to that, it’s all kind of…I don’t know what to compare being as serious as that. That’s as big as it gets and puts in perspective everything else that we do.”

Khan concluded, “If we all came together and were a family then, we can get through just about anything. For me, I’ve learned a lot, but the most important thing is, whatever position you’re in, if your back is against the wall, just remember that there are people there that you can turn to.”