Jim Cornette’s Reaction To AEW Debut Of CM Punk: “It Was Perfect”

Jim Cornette has heaped praise on the debut of CM Punk in AEW, calling the return of the ‘Voice of the Voiceless’ “Perfect”.

After months of rumours and speculation, Punk made his long-awaited return to wrestling at Rampage: The First Dance on August 20th to one of the greatest ovations in the history of wrestling from his hometown Chicago crowd.

During an emotional speech, he explained he had returned to wrestling, and AEW in particular, because he wanted to work with the young talent in the company who had the same passion for the profession that he had “stamped out” of him.

Speaking on his podcast, The Jim Cornette Experience, the legendary manager had nothing but good things to say about how everything happened, even going as far as to say that it was better than how he would have done it himself.

“Well, wasn’t the way I would have done it. It was actually a lot better. It was perfect.”

He went on to talk about how loud the Chicago crowd was for their ‘Second City Saint’, saying that it was a “perfect storm” of factors leading up to the event.

“I’ve never seen a show have to go to break before the guy gets in the ring because the people won’t stop screaming. Did Hogan ever get that? There have been huge pops in history but this was a perfect storm. A hometown, a crowd like that, we know the AEW faithful are very motivated, and a major star that they not only haven’t seen in seven years, but they weren’t sure they were ever going to get to see again. I don’t know that something like this has ever been done in wrestling with all of those pieces in place at same time. But they come back from the break, they’re still f****** going crazy.”

Cornette also compared Punk’s speech to the audience to John Cena, who he regards as someone who can put on a “promo clinic”.

“This wasn’t as much of a promo as much as this star that they love coming out and having a personal conversation with each and every one of them. John was entertaining, and John’s very well-spoken, and John’s a great performer. But that wasn’t that. I don’t know that he would have been having that conversation with each and every one of those people unless it was SummerSlam and he’s promoting the show. But Punk wanted to say a few of those things.”

He summed up by explaining that Punk’s return worked so well because of its simplicity and lack of it being “gimmicked up”.

“So the point is, I’ve said this so many years. This is a classic example of it. The more genuine something can be in the wrestling business, the less you have to gimmick it and, except for where it just so happened that old Darby Allin and Sting were up there in the rafters watching, they didn’t gimmick it up. Nobody interfered, nobody interrupted. The whole way that he did this thing was perfect, including the sit cross-legged in the ring, the sharp comments about the place that got him sick in the first place, and he took his time because he had them eating out of his hand.”