Eric Bischoff Questions Who’d Want To Do Business With CM Punk
Eric Bischoff has had his say on whether he thinks CM Punk returning to WWE would be best for business and says Punk “sh*t the bed” in AEW.
CM Punk returned to the wrestling business to great fanfare when he joined AEW in August 2021. Just over a year later, Punk’s future looks anything but certain following his comments and the alleged backstage fight that took place after All Out in 2022.
While those on the other side of that fight, The Elite, have since returned to AEW television, there has been no indication if Punk ever will again, with many questioning if he could make a shocking return to WWE.
Speaking to Steve Fall on Ten Count, former WCW President Eric Bischoff was asked if he thought CM Punk returning to WWE would be a good business decision and he did not mince his words:
“I don’t think it would be. I think CM Punk sh*t the bed. When Tony Khan brought CM Punk into AEW, he still had that mystique, the Pipe bomb mystique. He was this character that stood up to the man and walked away. There’s a rebel, rebellious quality in that character that I think the average American admires.”
“So Punk had this mystique and still had his fanbase, and Tony Khan was able to take advantage of that. Over a very short period of time, that mystique began to just dissipate, it was like letting the air out of the ballon a little bit more each and every week. CM Punk came in and great ratings, and then, literally, the next week, started in a free fall back down to pre-Punk levels.”
“You look at where AEW is in terms of week-to-week ratings, which is the only thing that we can have to measure that’s public because the financial information is all private, and we don’t really hear anything about the real financial information. We just get the top-line stuff.”
“But ratings is the data that we have that we can go, ‘Oh, okay. This is where this product is going.’ Flat-lined shortly after CM Punk got there. Flat-lined to pre-Punk levels.”
Bischoff then touched on the media scrum at All Out where the issues with Punk and AEW came to a head and questions why anyone would want to be in business with CM Punk:
“I think that a lot of that has to do with people came, they were excited because of the aura and the mystique, they saw, and they went, ‘Eh. Not so much. Little bit, but eh. Nothing special.’”
“Then for Punk to conduct himself in the manner in which he did I think left a bad taste in not only the fans’ mouths, but why would anybody wanna hire a guy that’s willing to publicly disparage the guy that’s writing him a check every week when he’s right next to you? Why would anybody want to be in business with that guy?”