Backstage Issues Between WWE And CM Punk? Truth Revealed

An interesting update on WWE star CM Punk has come to light.

Punk headlined Night Two of WrestleMania 42 against Roman Reigns. Sadly for The Straight Edge Superstar, he ended up dropping the World Heavyweight Championship to Reigns.

CM Punk’s last WWE appearance, as of this writing, was on the RAW after WrestleMania 42, where he teased a feud with Cody Rhodes. There have been conflicting rumors about his absence since then.

Earlier this month, Dave Meltzer reported that WWE plans to bring back Punk on SmackDown, basically to balance the rosters on RAW and the blue brand. On the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Meltzer stated that while CM Punk has been earmarked for SmackDown, he was “pushing very hard” for his return to be on the July 6 edition of RAW in Chicago.

The wrestling veteran further added that there are indeed backstage “issues” between Punk and WWE, but “not as bad as some have made it out to be.”

Even though Punk is earmarked for SmackDown, he was pushing very hard for his return to be on the 7/6 Raw show because it’s in Chicago. His departure was basically to get him ready for moving to SmackDown and eventually a program with Rhodes, but to say there are no issues at all, that wouldn’t be correct. It’s not as bad as some have made it out to be, but it’s not like there aren’t any issues at all. [H/T: Wrestling Observer]

Huge CM Punk WWE pitch

While speaking on a recent episode of the Notsam Wrestling podcast, the analyst put forward the idea of Gunther winning the Undisputed WWE Title triple threat match against current champion Cody Rhodes and Sami Zayn at Night of Champions.

Sam Roberts then pitched that CM Punk could emerge as Gunther’s opponent at SummerSlam 2026.

What if CM Punk came back and said, ‘Well, I’m gonna get the rematch with Gunther,’ right? Because now you go, ‘Okay, last time CM Punk fought Gunther for the title, it was SummerSlam a year ago, and CM Punk won, and then Seth Rollins cashed in.’ So, if CM Punk fights Gunther for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam, well, now I’m sitting there going, ‘Was Gunther gonna lose the title after a month?’

Because I want CM Punk to win that match because I want Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk to be a WWE Championship match that we get to. But I could all, you know, like that. I would probably make CM Punk vs. Gunther the WWE Championship match at SummerSlam just because it leaves so many options open. [29:36 onwards]

It remains to be seen how WWE books CM Punk in the foreseeable future.

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