CM Punk made his shocking return to the WWE at Survivor Series: WarGames from his hometown of Chicago last November 25th, then appeared on RAW two nights later, where he cut a promo for the first time in 10 years and declared he is back home. Punk also appeared on the Tribute To The Troops episode of WWE SmackDown last week as well as RAW this past Monday night, which resulted in all three shows having a massive increase in TV ratings.
Dave Meltzer stated on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Radio Program that “The Best In The World” CM Punk greatly changed things for WWE as he helped open the door for the company’s higher-ups to meet with the executives from Warner Bros. Discovery, with him as the selling point since they had already previously turned down the WWE’s TV media rights deal for RAW.
Meltzer also stated that about a month ago, WWE was shopping Monday Night RAW around to networks such as Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney’s FX and there was also the possibility of WWE RAW staying with USA Network. Dave Meltzer then noted that as far as the RAW deal is concerned the belief is that they are finalizing pretty soon and having Punk compete at the house show in Los Angeles is a strategy since Punk is a big-time player and the people who they are courting have their headquarters in Los Angeles.
It was also mentioned that SmackDown is not expected to stay on Friday and it is possible that RAW is moved to a different night, but there will probably be some news coming out within the next couple of weeks and it is also possible that WBD could have WWE and AEW on their networks but it all depends on how much WBD can afford because they also want to keep the NBA.
