“There’s No Money To Be Made There” – Jim Cornette On CM Punk Vs The Elite In AEW
The Elite facing CM Punk in an AEW ring isn’t a rivalry that would make a lot of money, according to wrestling legend Jim Cornette.
It’s fair to say that one of the biggest stories in AEW in 2022 was the backstage fight after AEW All Out. CM Punk had just won the AEW World Title in the main event of All Out in his hometown of Chicago and instead of only talking about the show, Punk decided to trash Colt Cabana, “Hangman” Adam Page, the EVPs of AEW (The Elite trio of Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks) and more.
Following Punk’s rant after All Out, he was confronted in the locker room by The Elite trio of Omega and The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) leading to a fight that also involved Punk’s friend Ace Steel, who was a Producer in AEW. Steel threw a chair that led to a black eye for Nick while Steel also bit Omega’s arm. Punk apparently was fighting with Matt during all of this. It was eventually broken up, but the headlines in the days, weeks and months that followed led to some damage for AEW because of the unprofessional behavior.
The “Brawl Out Fallout” led to Steel being fired, Punk is likely never coming back to AEW while he rehabs a torn triceps injury that required surgery and The Elite trio were suspended for over two months before returning to ring at Full Gear in November.
Since coming back to AEW, The Elite have taken shots at Punk during matches with Omega actually biting Pac’s arm during a tag team match while Matt Jackson mocked CM Punk’s failed attempt at doing Hangman Page’s “Buckshot Lariat” finishing move. They also took shots at Punk by including “F**k CM Punk” chants in their Being The Elite YouTube series. Since The Elite has mocked Punk so much publicly, some fans may think it is all a work. Time will tell if that’s the case.
Jim Cornette talked about the potential of CM Punk and The Elite possibly working together again on a recent episode of his Jim Cornette Experience podcast. Cornett spoke about if Punk actually returned to AEW someday.
“Well, actually it would be business. If they had that lined up, laid out, then all this would be perfectly acceptable. And wishful thinking would indicate, you know that everybody would want to see that, right? Oh, yeah, everybody gets back together. We have this big program, it draws all kinds of money. But what you are overlooking is the fact that these f*cking douchebags don’t want to draw money.
“They don’t want anybody to jeopardize their position, their company, their revolution, their movement. If anybody gets over or is more important than them, or shows people that their wrestling is sh*t, and that people still in larger numbers react to sh*t they can understand, that’s bad.”
“And that would have to, you would have to assume that the buckaroos and twinkle toes were willing to work with a guy like Punk who they’ve had heat with, or that Tony would be willing to deal with a guy that’s told him to go f*ck himself or whatever. Now I know, people are saying, Well, hey, Vince McMahon has put the WWF title on a dozen guys that said f*ck you to him or whatever, before that. Yes, because Vince was all about business.”
As Cornette continued, he mocked the booking style of AEW Owner/President Tony Khan as well.
“This is not business. This is fantasy booking by a billionaire boy child. And the incredible windfall that these self-trained, self-important, self-indulgent nitwits have fallen into by getting said billionaire boy child to f*cking fund their goddamn vision of what this wrestling is. And it ain’t working, because they’re in the same place they were three years ago. But they’ve had tons more bad publicity.”
“Ticket sales are going down, ratings are going down, everybody’s getting in a fight backstage. And the only people in the locker room that have the pull with Tony to get him to do anything, are the ones that are protecting their spots at the expense of everything else. The show, the program, the business, everything.”
Cornette spoke about how it’s not a perfect world while claiming that if Punk worked with The Elite it would bring him down to their level.
“So yes, in a perfect world, this would all be a work, but it’s not. And it’s not going to be and they don’t have it in them to call Punk and say, alright, let’s put this f*cking behind us, let’s make some money. And let’s bid to be honest. Besides the same group of people, you could probably get P*nk and Olivier if people thought there was goddamn real legitimate bad feelings, which there is, you could probably get a pay-per-view out of them.”
“To have Punk in the same ring with the buckaroos would just be bringing him down to their level. There’s no money to be made there anyway, because the only people that would care would be the same people already watching the show.”