Did Warner Bros. Discovery Spoil CM Punk's Involvement With AEW Collision?
Warner Bros. Discovery might have let the cat out of the bag regarding CM Punk and AEW Collision on Wednesday. The weekly Saturday night show was unveiled during the WBD upfront presentation on Wednesday morning in New York City and the former AEW World Champion has been attached to the show in rumors and reports for the past couple of months. However, the presentation, press release and official poster all came and went without so much as a mention of Punk.
However, WBD then sent out a press release email to media outlets recapping the upfront presentation along with links to all of their major announcements. The one for Collision read as follows —" TNT Launches a Second Night of Wrestling with 'AEW: COLLISION' Featuring Headliners CM Punk, Thunder Rosa, Miro, Samoa Joe and Powerhouse Hobbs on Saturday, June 17." The link takes you to the Collision press release, which didn't include Punk. ComicBook then reached out to Warner Bros. Discover and was told "CM Punk is not affiliated with TNT's AEW Collision."
WBD's press release headline for the AEW Collision announcement originally mentioned CM Punk and other wrestlers, which you can see in the cached listing (left) before it was edited (right).
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) May 17, 2023
h/t to @JimmyTraina for noticing pic.twitter.com/VUzkvjzbh1
It's entirely possible that WBD is trying to keep Punk separate from Collision until after his official return to AEW television, which was rumored to be imminent as of yesterday. Stay tuned for more updates.
The official announcement featured Miro, Hobbs, Rosa and Joe while the poster also featured a number of AEW's Champions — MJF (World), Orange Cassidy (International), FTR (World Tag Team) and The House of Black (World Trios).
"With the addition of 'AEW: Collision' on TNT, I'm extremely proud that a Turner network will be the home of Saturday night wrestling for the first time in more than two decades," Tony Khan said in the press release regarding Collision. "The debut of 'Collision' is significant across numerous sectors including television, wrestling, entertainment and sports, and reinforces AEW as the bold property we envisioned when we launched in 2019. 'Collision' will deliver live every Saturday night more of what fans and viewers tell us they want athleticism, big personalities, exciting storylines and authentic wrestling action, all of which have become synonymous with AEW."
Another big aspect of the show that wasn't addressed in the press release was whether or not there'd be a brand split similar to what WWE has done with Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown in the past. Fightful Select's Sean Ross Sapp had an update on that front early Wednesday morning.
"...We're told that talent are expecting a hard brand split, with the exception of many AEW Champions. We've been told that there will be additional exceptions here and there. We have not learned how exactly the split will be determined, if there will be a draft, or how that will work out. However, the working plan as of this week is a firm brand split, with some rare exceptions," Sapp wrote.