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CM Punk is back on WWE programming and the WWE Universe is still reeling from the pleasantly shocking development.
The former WWE Champion may not be back as an active in-ring competitor, but him being involved with the company in some capacity is still a win-win situation.
Punk has been announced as a special contributor and analyst on WWE Backstage but that wasn't supposed to be his original role. Dave Meltzer revealed in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the Fox officials initially wanted Punk to be the co-host of the studio show.
However, in the end, the co-host gig fell through and Punk was instead brought on board to work limited dates.
It was also revealed that there was some backstage negativity amongst the people who knew about Punk's intentions to join WWE Backstage, owing to the bad blood in the past. However, the general mood changed for the good when he cleared his screen test and a deal was expected to be offered to Punk.
Meltzer stated:
"At the time we had learned and reported that his agent had attempted to get him on the newly planned FS 1 show as an analyst. FOX at one point pushed for him to co-host the show. Those in WWE who were aware of it, noted negativity about it at first, because of the past bad blood. But later, when he got a tryout, we were told that the expectation was that an offer would be made to him. He had claimed to have not gotten an offer when asked. That could have been true, or it could have been to build for the surprise moment."
After a solid premiere episode, the ratings of WWE Backstage saw a major decline in recent weeks. The FS1 show couldn't even break into the cable top 150 and a big step had to be taken to improve the falling ratings. Fox had to get CM Punk back!
The Best in the World came out in closing stages of the latest episode of the show to his iconic Cult of Personality entrance theme song and delivered a promising message. He declared, "Just when you think you’ve got the answers, I change the culture".
He will appear on the next episode of WWE Backstage and we expect the ratings to shoot through the roof.
However, with Survivor Series happening in Chicago, we just can't help but speculate about the possibility of seeing Punk make a big appearance at the PPV. We hope it does happen!
