CM Punk was treated as a heel by Long Island fans in the UBS Arena on Wednesday night, so AEW decided to send the crowd home happy by having him get choked out by HOOK. Following the AEW Rampage tapings, Punk was forced back into the ring by Danhausen and wound up backing right into “The Cold-Hearted Handsome Devil.” He tried to back off by offering him a handshake and the young man initially accepted, only to nail Punk with an Exploder Suplex and lock on his REDRUM submission, much to the delight of fans.
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Punk played up the fact that he wasn’t liked by MJF’s hometown during Dynamite by beating another Long Island native in John Silver. He then stood face-to-face with Hangman Page and promised that, one way or another, by the end of Double or Nothing they would shake hands.
Punk spoke with ComicBook earlier in the day about how much he has enjoyed his first nine months in AEW, saying, “This run has been more than what I expected. I had expectations. They were pretty high. So far, they’ve pretty much shattered all that, and that’s just based on analytics and numbers of how well we’re doing. I’ve long said that I’m there for the fans in the building. Nowadays everybody is still focused on ratings numbers when cable is absolutely — I canceled DirecTV months ago. I just, I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s too convoluted. It’s too expensive. Streaming services are, I feel like, are the future. So when people look at ratings and say that wrestling is dying, I say, ‘Well look at our buildings. We’re selling out and we’re doing our first million-dollar gate.’ So I don’t attribute that just to me. I attribute that to the spirit of AEW and everybody behind the scenes that makes it all work and makes it all click. But the run, my run specifically, my stuff as a whole, I’ve never been happier in a wrestling ring.”
AEW returns to pay-per-view on May 29 with the Double or Nothing event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Check out the updated card below:
- AEW World Championship: Hangman Page vs. CM Punk
- AEW Women’s World Championship: Thunder Rosa vs. Serena Deeb
- Men’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament Final
- Women’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament Final
- MJF vs. Wardlow
- (Buy-In) HOOKHausen vs. Tony Nese & Mark Sterling
