TNA’s Plans For CM Punk Ahead Of WWE Return Revealed

CM Punk could have ended up in TNA instead of WWE.

In September 2023, The Second City Saint was fired by AEW after a backstage altercation with various company talents, which got physical.

Two months later, he shockingly returned to his former employer at Survivor Series: WarGames in his hometown of Chicago.

TNA Star Claims Being Named CM Punk’s Potential TNA Rival

During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, TNA superstar Steve Maclin revealed that the company held discussions with Punk after his release from All Elite Wrestling. He also claimed that he would have been Punk’s first opponent.

This information was conveyed to him by the then-company president Scott D’Amore.

If you want some behind-the-scenes dirt that nobody knows about, CM Punk, before almost possibly signed with TNA — was coming in and I was gonna be his first challenger, which I found out right as Scott D’Amore was getting let go or was let go.

We were having dinner one night and he let me know, ‘Yeah, Punk was gonna almost sign there and then you were gonna be his first challenger.’ I was like, ‘Sh*t!’ That would have been cool.

You see his time from coming back into wrestling, what happened at AEW and to even WWE, it just shows the star that he is now and that he’s always kind of been that way… that culture. He’s literally a cult of personality, if you wanna play the cliché to the song but, he just shows the magnitude that he’s one of the last alive superstars.

There were a few times he was behind the scenes in Chicago (for TNA). It was cool to just see him… I’m like, ‘Oh, CM Punk, what’s up, man?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, what’s up Mr. Maclin?’ I was like, ‘Cool. Good to see you.’

Because he was really good to me when I was an extra in WWE and you always hear the horror stories — an extra — when you say hello to people, like, people shun you and stuff but he was very respectful and I never forgot that. That’s always something in wrestling that I never forget is the people that were nice to me on the way up. [H/T: Fightful]