Why is the CM Punk vs. Jon Moxley AEW World Championship Unification Match Happening on AEW Dynamite Tonight?

By Connor Casey

AEW decided to move the unification match between AEW World CM Punk and Interim AEW World Champion Jon Moxley from next month's All Out pay-per-view to tonight's AEW Dynamite in Cleveland. The move comes at the same time as reports of backstage drama involving Punk and Hangman Page have been dropping and gives the company very little time to build up a different main event for the Sept. 4 pay-per-view. According to Fightful Select's Sean Ross Sapp, Moxley was the one who supported the idea and one source even claims he pitched it. Punk "eventually" agreed to the idea. 

Tony Khan talked about the match while on Busted Open Radio this week, saying (h/t PWInsider), "It's a great match for the fans now and I feel like it would be a great match at any time. But tonight, it felt like the right night for this big fight, and given that last week, we really could not keep these guys apart, it just did not seem sustainable to try and have this show get taken down week after week by these guys who were clearly just going to tear the ring apart if we continued this way. 

"So we saw last week we couldn't even get the show running, Mark Sterling and Tony Nese were coming out for an interview and they couldn't even get that going. Jon Moxley hijacked the show and CM Punk was out and they were fighting again for the second time in the same night. So these guys wanted to fight and I think tonight on TBS presents a great opportunity for a big fight. Of course, as we approach All Out, the card is going to be massive and we're going to have a much better idea of what that's going to look like," he continued. 

Here's what the lineup for tonight's Dynamite looks like. If Punk wins, his title reign will hit 90 days by the end of this week. If Moxley wins, he'll officially be the first ever two-time AEW World Champion in the young company's history. 

  • Unification Match: AEW World Champion CM Punk vs. Interim AEW World Champion Jon Moxley
  • AEW Trios Championship Tournament: Death Triangle vs. United Empire
  • Dax Harwood vs. Jay Lethal
  • Dr. Britt Baker vs. KiLynn King
  • Billy Gunn vs. Colten Gunn
  • Daniel Garcia & Chris Jericho Proo
  • Ricky Starks Promo

h/t Fightful Select

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