The biggest news in wrestling this week — maybe this whole year — was CM Punk’s shocking return to WWE during on Saturday night. Punk was fired from AEW over the summer following multiple altercations with co-workers behind-the-scenes, and he’s now back in the company he’s talked trash about for the better part of a decade. In Punk’s return promo during Monday Night RAW, he didn’t mention or even heavily reference AEW, but Wednesday’s edition of AEW Dynamite saw the promotion’s current champion reference Punk.
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MJF, the AEW World Champion and ROH Tag Team Champion, headed to the ring halfway through the episode to speak about his upcoming opponent at World’s End, Samoa Joe. Surprisingly, MJF’s entire promo was about how great Samoa Joe was throughout his entire career, and it’s hard to talk about Joe’s career without mentioning WWE or CM Punk.
Max first addressed WWE when talking about Samoa Joe’s greatness and how he never got the respect he deserved in WWE. “Now, unfortunately on in his career, his talents weren’t fully recognized and he was not afforded the opportunity to be a world champion in WWE.”
Hearing those three letters caused quite a reaction from the audience, and they seemed even more surprised a couple of moments later when MJF name-dropped CM Punk. Referencing some massive stars he has beaten throughout his young career, MJF mentioned CM Punk alongside Bryan Danielson and Chris Jericho.
MJF Teaming With Samoa Joe
The promo ended with the lights going out and a group of the mysterious Devil’s goonies attacking Max and preparing for a devastating blow. He was rescued by Samoa Joe, who has made it clear he wants to take on a full-strength MJF at the end of the month. Max then received a challenge from the Devil in the form of some typed messages on the screen.
Whoever stole MJF’s mask has challenged him to a mystery tag team match during next week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, fighting alongside Samoa Joe and against an unknown opponent. Much to Joe’s dismay, MJF accepted the challenge and cleared with AEW CEO Tony Khan, so the future opponents will be working together in tag team action next week.
The identity of this new Devil still has yet to be revealed, but it feels like that may change in the coming weeks, especially with World’s End on the horizon.
