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Throughout 2022, CM Punk has already suffered multiple injuries. The first was a foot injury during his feud against Hangman Page for the AEW World Championship. In the controversial post-All Out backstage melee, he suffered a severe tricep injury which set him back quite a while. Recently, Freddie Prinze Jr. noticed the former WWE Champion being prone to injuries over time.
Since the incident, neither Tony Khan nor the promotion has made any official announcement of his status with them. On the Dynamite after All Out, the AEW President announced that two title tournaments were set to crown new champions as the former had been stripped of their championships.
During a recent edition of Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, the former WWE writer pointed out his observations on the Second City Saint's inability to keep up with the younger generation:
"His body wasn't able to hold up. He was getting hurt a lot, as we all do when we get older. His patience wasn't able to hold up in dealing with a younger generation... I don't know where he goes from here. I don't know if he wrestles again... But if you can't get along with your coworkers at all and you resent the younger generation for everything they are and everything they believe in, I don't know where you fit in in modern wrestling," Freddie Prinze Jr. said. [H/T Wrestling Inc]
While there's no official news, Stokely Hathaway has seemingly hinted that CM Punk was no longer associated with AEW.
AEW's Brian Pillman Jr. is convinced that CM Punk's 'old school mentality' did not fare well for him in the brawl out
At the media scrum that followed the pay-per-view, CM Punk called out the EVPs for being 'irresponsible.' He then went on a rant about how he was 'working with children' when talking about a few colleagues.
After the interaction, a fight broke out backstage between CM Punk and Ace Steel against The Elite. The former AEW Champion is known for being vocal and having certain ideologies and methodologies.
While speaking with Wrestling Inc., Brian Pillman Jr. cited that Punk's mentality might align with WWE, but his behavior was unacceptable at the Jacksonville-based promotion:
"Punk's got an old-school mentality," Pillman Jr. said. "I think at the WWE, and maybe, perhaps, during those years coming up there, that would've been a solution. That would've been acceptable. Sticking up for whatever you believe in. I mean, who knows what was going through his head? Whatever. But that's just not the culture at AEW. That's not how we work. That's not how the company was founded." [H/T Wrestling Inc]
The former champion has been out of the public eye since the fiasco until recently, when he was spotted doing commentary for a UFC event.
Would you like to see CM Punk back in AEW? Sound off in the comments.
