All Elite Wrestling held their All Out PPV Event last September 4th from the NOW Arena in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, Illinois. Immediately following the All Out PPV Event, a media scrum would take place and a major brawl would ensue between CM Punk, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) and Ace Steel following CM Punk’s comments on The Elite and that would lead to AEW stripping Punk and the Elite of their championships and being suspended indefinitely alongside AEW producer Pat Buck, Christopher Daniels, Michael Nakazawa and Brandon Cutler.
Since then, Ace Steel was fired from All Elite Wrestling and The Elite returned to in-ring action and is now the AEW World Trios Champions by defeating Death Triangle’s Penta El Zero Miedo, Rey Fenix and PAC in a Best Of 7 series. CM Punk suffered a torn triceps and was required to undergo surgery, so he was going to miss time anyway even though the former AEW World Champion was not suspended, though AEW CEO Tony Khan has yet to provide an update on CM Punk’s status. It was also reported in the past that Punk and AEW were in talks about a potential contract buyout, with Punk being the one to push for it.
Dave Meltzer stated on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Radio Program that AEW is lacking a top babyface right now to feud with AEW World Champion MJF, with fans believing that guy could be the former AEW World Champion CM Punk, but that all depends on the time table of Punk’s recovery from his injury and if Punk and AEW will be able to work something out and put all their issues behind them.
This is what Dave Meltzer said:
“But they are lacking in that babyface position, something fierce. They had a shot with MJF, obviously, they did the double-cross on that. MJF was great as a heel tonight, but they don’t have the guy. That’s one of the reasons….Punk’s not gonna be the guy either. I know some people might say, ‘Well, Punk’s coming back.’ Punk may come back. He will be available to come back if they want to use him in a couple of months. It’s not like it’s so far in the future. Of course, if they were to bring Punk back, that opens up a lot of other issues that we can talk about another day. That’s the weakness. There’s no easy answer to this. It’s not like you can snap your fingers and create a babyface.”
You can check out Dave Meltzer’s comments in the video below. H/T to WrestlingNews.co for transcribing the quotes.