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#5 CM Punk
When CM Punk showed up on WWE Backstage, people thought that the much-vaunted return of The Voice of the Voiceless to professional wrestling had finally happened. But Punk in several interviews, since then, has said that he was just a Fox Employee and only covered WWE programming in his role as an analyst.
WWE Backstage is seemingly canceled, which would technically make CM Punk a free agent. But before all of this went down, AEW did court CM Punk aggressively. When Punk was asked about their negotiations, he said that he didn't like their approach as the offer was made via text message.
Former WCW star and nWo alumni Konnan said on the Keepin it 100' podcast that CM Punk didn't sign with AEW because he was asking for too much money. In a recent interview, Cody Rhodes elaborated on Konnan's comments and the alleged 'text message offer.' He said:
"As far as the CM Punk negotiations go, everyone heard the famous ‘he got a text from us’. Yeah, of course there were negotiations and he did ask for a great amount of money and Punk is worth a great deal of money."
Cody also pushed back on the 'these wrestlers are running this wrestling company' narrative, which is not entirely true. While he, Kenny Omega, and The Young Bucks are running creative and marketing, the money isn't his at the end of the day, and financials are handled by a group of smart, fiscally conservative people.
Cody also didn't rule out working with CM Punk one day as he didn't it was only about the money with him. He said:
“Because the price tag becomes a lot more justifiable if you’re genuinely interested in what we’re doing at the high speed we’re doing it. And again, that’s not even specific to him, just in general, if the passion is not there, the money is not there.”
AEW Dynamite has grown in a short period, especially with its contract extension on TNT. While they may be losing some weeks to WWE NXT in overall viewers, they're able to lead regularly in the vital demo rating as Chris Jericho 'elegantly' put in on a recent episode of AEW Dynamite.
CM Punk may have turned down an AEW contract the first time around. Will AEW approach him again? Only time will tell.
