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NJPW Star Pokes Fun At CM Punk After Battle In The Valley

By John Canton • Published 20th February 2023
cm punk aew arm

CM Punk was in attendance at a recent NJPW show, which led to one New Japan star making an interesting remark about it.

There was a very familiar face in attendance at the NJPW Battle of the Valley pay-per-view in San Jose, California this past Saturday, February 18th. CM Punk was spotted in the crowd along with some friends for his first public appearance at a wrestling show since AEW’s All Out event in September 2022.

All Out 2022 was the night when CM Punk regained the AEW World Title from Jon Moxley, suffered a torn triceps injury during that match, went on a rant at a post-show press conference and got into a backstage fight with The Elite all in the same night.

One of the wrestlers in action at the NJPW Battle of the Valley PPV was KENTA, who defeated Fred Rosser (formerly Darren Young in WWE) to win the Strong Openweight Championship.

As he has done in the past, KENTA went on Twitter to comment on Punk’s appearance. The reason for that is because KENTA created the Go To Sleep finisher that sees him lift an opponent onto his shoulders and drop them onto a rising knee lift. It’s a move that Punk stole from KENTA to use as his own. KENTA wrote:

“I heard that my biggest fan in the world came to arena last night. I hope he enjoyed REAL Go2Sleep.”

It is currently unknown what is next for Punk in pro wrestling because there are a lot of people in AEW that don’t like him and getting into backstage fights isn’t a good thing, obviously.

What isn’t known is when Punk may return to the ring since he is expected to be healthy enough to wrestle again soon. However, he may never wrestle again for AEW due to the bad blood with The Elite and others in the company. CM Punk is still under contract to AEW, so for now he couldn’t go to work for NJPW or any other promotion.

KENTA will be in action at the Impact Wrestling No Surrender fallout taping this Saturday when he faces Mike Bailey.

https://twitter.com/IMPACTWRESTLING/status/1627729804660477952