7/22/2025

© AEW

What’s More Punk Rock Than Selling Out?

By Chris Gannon

Chicago, 25th November 2023 – WWE had just completed another successful event in a hot streak that had been running for about a year, one that had seen business increase in every measurable way, even increasing TV ratings at a time when ratings for nearly every other show on TV (especially on cable) was falling. There was one big question that had been building up about the event, though, that was answered after the show chyron appeared on screen, an old trick that WWE had developed for NXT in 2017, lulling the viewers into a false sense of security that, yes – the show was over – only to be stunned by Tommaso Ciampa turning on his tag partner Johnny Gargano. In this case, the shock was the return of CM Punk to the company nearly a decade after he walked out. After Punk had been fired with cause from AEW on September 2nd 2023, the big question had been if WWE would hire Punk back. There were arguments for and against it. On the one hand, hiring Punk back and having a successful run with him would help make their competition look second rate. On the other hand, they were so successful at the moment that they’d chosen to use a smaller stage setup for their show to allow them to sell more tickets. Did they really need someone with whom they had a strained history, and whose relationship with his previous employers had fallen apart to the point where he was one of only a handful of people who had actually been fired from the company? Whatever discussions went on in WWE, we had our answer as Punk walked out on the stage, looking refreshed and healthier after months off the road. Now we had a different question: how long could this last?

© AEW

The Wilderness Years

After Punk’s exit from WWE, he spent several years staying away from wrestling. He tried his hand at writing comics, acting in films and competing in UFC. The last one seemed incredibly ambitious, given that he was in his late 30s, had no background in competitive combat sports and a litany of injuries picked up during his 15 years in wrestling. He had a huge uphill climb to say the least, but he seemed to have a reasonable set of expectations, even half joking that there were probably a lot of people who would pay to see him get beaten up, which did appear to be the case with at least his first PPV.

The most constant thing he was involved in, though, was a lawsuit. After Punk’s exit from WWE and subsequent release on his wedding day, something that Vince McMahon claimed was a coincidence and Punk believed wasn’t, a lot of people were clamouring for an interview with him. He decided to go on longtime friend and fellow wrestler Colt Cabana’s Art Of Wrestling podcast in November 2014. He went into detail about various things that had made him unhappy towards the end of his time in WWE, including booking decisions and medical care. The latter led to Punk and Cabana being sued for defamation by Dr. Chris Amann, a lawsuit that was supported by WWE publicly, if not financially, releasing a video of Punk from “Royal Rumble” 2014 that was zoomed in on his arse, purportedly to dispute the idea that he had a baseball sized staph infection on his lower back. I have never been involved in a defamation suit, but from what I understand most civil cases settle before court action because they can get incredibly expensive. Even in a case like Punk and Cabana’s where the jury ruled in their favour, they were still left with incredibly large legal bills. At the outset, Punk and Cabana had an agreement that Punk would pay for the lawyers, an agreement that came to an end partway through the suit. After the suit was settled, Cabana sued Punk for the legal costs borne after the end of the agreement and Punk countersued Cabana for half of the legal costs prior to the end of the agreement. In the end, both lawsuits were settled without any money changing hands, but their relationship had been irreparably damaged by the experience.

2018 and 2019 proved to be two of the most important years in US wrestling history since the demise of WCW, with the indie boom and the rise of the Elite fueling the popularity of New Japan and RoH in America, Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks took a huge gamble by promoting the first “All In”, an ambitious show that was the first non-WWE show to draw an attendance of more than 10,000 people in the US since 2001. It featured a plethora of wrestlers who had made their name (or were making their name) outside of WWE; it was an enormous success, selling out the the Sears Center in less than thirty minutes and drawing 50,000 buys on PPV. A few months after, AEW was founded and began running shows. The company was made up of wrestlers who had either never been in WWE – like Kenny Omega, Hangman Adam Page and the Young Bucks – or who had been in WWE but felt misused during their time in the company – wrestlers like Cody Rhodes, Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley. Many Punk fans were anticipating him finally returning to wrestling in a company that seemed like a natural fit for him. Punk, however, was less interested, telling an audience at the Starrcast convention that took place in Chicago on the same weekend as AEW’s second PPV “All Out”, the spiritual successor to “All In”, that while he had talked to people in AEW, he wasn’t enthralled with the way they conducted business.

On the 31st August 2019, CM Punk told an audience in Chicago that, when it came to wrestling, “[he wasn’t] going to be anywhere.” On the 12th November 2019, he debuted as a commentator on WWE “Backstage”, a programme on the Fox network covering WWE. Punk told the world that “Just when they think they got the answers, I change the culture,” showing that he could draw inspiration from both past stars like Roddy Piper as well as current stars like The Elite, with their “Change The World” philosophy.

In the December 4th 2023 Wrestling Observer newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that this was an attempt by both Fox and Punk to get Punk back into WWE to be a star on “Smackdown”, with Fox even willing to pay for Punk’s contract. WWE reportedly wasn’t interested. Over the next few episodes, Punk would make appearances to give his analysis of the going ons in WWE, but the only memorable thing from his time on the show was his response to Miz sarcastically saying “oh, sorry I didn’t ‘change the culture’, my bad my bad!” In a now-deleted tweet that Punk has recently claimed “legitimately had nothing to with Saudi Arabia,” Punk wrote “Go suck a blood money covered dick in Saudi Arabia, you fucking dork.” The pandemic hit in 2020, Fox cancelled the show and a year later, Punk signed with AEW.

© AEW

Third Time’s The Charm

After being unable to convince WWE to hire him in 2019 (and then again in 2023 while suspended from AEW after the Brawl Out incident), Punk finally made his return to “the place that made [him] sick” to find it was a different place from when he left. For one thing, Vince McMahon had been forced to resign in disgrace after it had been discovered that he had secretly paid millions of dollars to several women employed and contracted by the company who he had sexually harassed and abused over a number of years, and then had forced board members who opposed his return six months later to resign in disgrace. Shortly after Punk’s return, McMahon was once again forced to resign in disgrace when Janel Grant filed her lawsuit against McMahon, former head of talent relations John Laurinitis and WWE, due to the horrific treatment she’d been subjected to by McMahon and Laurinitis whilst she was an employee of WWE, some of which occurred in the company headquarters.

Paul Levesque, aka HHH, had been promoted to Chief Content Officer (in old school parlance, the ‘booker’) after Vince’s first resignation. Levesque and Punk had publicly and privately been at odds over the years, with Punk referring to Levesque as McMahon’s “doofus son-in-law” and gleefully sharing the story of how he told Levesque how he wasn’t interested in a “WrestleMania” match with him on the podcast with Cabana in 2014. Levesque, prior to recasting his public image as the friendly Uncle Paul of Sports Entertainment, had developed a reputation for gaining and leveraging a significant amount of power behind the scenes. In 2011, he used that rep to beat Punk in a match on the “Night of Champions” PPV, during a period where Punk was still basking in the glow of the infamous pipebomb promo. Vince McMahon may have left, but a large number of the people who held power in the company had learned how to run WWE from Vince, both in terms of booking, promotion and how to humiliate people they had a vendetta against. Over the years there have been numerous examples of Vince hiring people who had left the company under acrimonious circumstances, with the primary aim of humiliating them. Former NWA World Champion Dusty Rhodes was forced to wear polka dot covered gear, and assigned a valet called Sapphire (a name with an incredibly racist connotation) to try to destroy his popularity. Tony Atlas was cast as Saba Simba, an incredibly racist gimmick of a savage African tribal chief. Even some people who had shown nothing but loyalty to WWE over the years were subject to onscreen abuse after abuse: Howard Finkel had his head shaved involuntarily in 1998, and lead announcer JR, who was recovering from colon surgery in 2006, was cruelly mocked in the notorious “Dr. Heinie” skit. How long would it be before Levesque enacted his own vindictive booking?

The Slow Roll

Regardless of any ill feelings behind the scenes, WWE clearly realised there was both money and reputational advantage to be gained from Punk’s return to the company, and they were going to take advantage of it. The longer that Punk could go without any backstage incidents, the more professional they would look and the less professional AEW would look. They also had a bunch of firsts they could promote with his return: the first house show match since his return, the first PPV match, the first TV match, the first Premium Live Event singles match. They only got through the first two before Punk was injured in the men’s 2024 Royal Rumble match, tearing his tricep, and earning some mockery due to his reputation of being fragile, something that had really stuck after Jon Moxley cut his infamous “fragile ego, fragile body, fragile mind” promo in the build up to their match at “All Out” 2022. Some even questioned if this would be one injury too many for Punk, but a successful surgery and rehab meant he was back wrestling by the summer, winning a three match feud with Drew McIntyre and then getting involved in a story with the man who had been the company’s top star for a decade, Roman Reigns. While he was injured, he did an interview with Ariel Helwani, the main aim of which appeared to be damaging AEW’s reputation. It seemed like everything was going in his favour.

© WWE

Slowly At First, Then All At Once

Oscar Wilde once said that “when the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers” and in 2025 CM Punk was certainly having his prayers answered. He was going to be in a match with Roman Reigns, and it was going to main event “WrestleMania”. Well, the match would also involve Seth Rollins and would main event night 1 of a “buy-one-get-one-free extravaganza” but it counted enough to bring Punk to tears. It was a match where Punk put in a valiant effort to keep up with his more athletically gifted opponents, before ending in betrayals and ballshots by Paul Heyman, whose managerial services seemed to hold more value than any title in WWE.

His other big wish was for one more title match with career rival John Cena, and boy, was he going to get it. All it was going to cost him was the last vestiges of his moral reputation.

Mid-match in the Middle East

From a booking perspective, the setup for Cena v Punk at “Night Of Champions” in Saudi Arabia was… odd. The central premise was that the villain, Cena, was forcing the hero, Punk, to compromise his morals by fighting for the championship he wanted in a place he didn’t want to go to. Punk, without hesitation said he’d follow Cena to Mars or Hell to fight him, not exactly great comparisons for a country that the company has been promoting as a beautiful, progressive place for the better part of a decade. (Editor’s Note: Though perhaps “Hell” is accurate, considering it can reach 50°C in summertime Saudi Arabia.)

On the 20th June 2025 episode of “Smackdown”, WWE did an unsubtle reprise of the pipebomb promo when Cena put Punk through a table, sponsored by Slim Jim’s, and spent twelve minutes eviscerating Punk’s character and capabilities, whilst Punk lay there doing nothing, finally capping it with the line “thanks for letting me rip off your promo to make you look even more foolish!” Was Cena shooting? Of course not, but he was throwing bombs that at best Punk agreed to, and at worst he couldn’t say no to.

The following week, Punk used a hack move right out of the Vince Russo playbook by dressing up in Cena’s style from 2003 and unleashing a sweaty promo in the style of a very slow rap where he couldn’t nail a cadence, missed and mixed up words, and generally looked like a geek. This was after a video was released of Punk pushing away a child looking for an autograph, and a kick off event where Punk assured the discontented crowd that his tweet to the Miz had nothing to do with Saudi Arabia, and was just due to him waking up and feeling crabby.

© WWE

With every passing week on the program, with every moment on TV, a sound grew louder and louder from the wrestling fandom. It wasn’t outrage, it was laughter. Laughter as Punk and WWE exposed the hollowness of Punk’s convictions. Laughter as Punk debased himself further every week, shedding his nominal values as he pursued what he really wanted: one of the last few glorious moments in a career that is coming to a close sooner than he would like.

In their drive to humiliate Punk, getting the last bit of value they could out of him, WWE has unwittingly reinvigorated a debate that had long been settled: is WWE continuing to do shows in Saudi Arabia, sponsored by the regime, to promote the country, for an estimated $50 million a show, a bad thing? The general feeling was that yes, it was – but what could anyone do? In the time since Jamal Khasshogi’s murder and dismemberment in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, weeks before the second WWE Saudi show, Vince McMahon’s conviction that they could carry on with this incredibly profitable relationship and eventually the world would move on, was proven correct. The UFC and Ari Emmanuel, future TKO members, had abandoned their relationships with Saudi Arabia only to eventually resume them. Saudi regime money has flooded sports and it barely registers with the public anymore. Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup in 2034, the first sole country to do so since Qatar in 2022. LIV Golf continues to increase its reach, TKO is getting ready to promote boxing in Saudi. Next year WWE will do three PLEs in Saudi Arabia, including the “Royal Rumble”, their second biggest brand, plus episodes of their “Raw” and “Smackdown” TV shows, which will most likely be worth more than the $100m per year they are currently getting. Mohammed bin Salman’s very expensive PR and ‘sportswashing’ strategy had appeared to work.

And then WWE made it, in text, a heelish act to force a wrestler to go to Saudi Arabia. This was them unwittingly admitting that they know this deal is morally abhorrent, even if they continue to take the money, put on the shows and air the propaganda of a regime that continues to imprison, torture and execute journalists, oppresses the queer populations of the country and forces Saudi women to live in a paternalistic hell where their existence is subject to the guardianship laws of the state. The argument in favour of working with this regime is that it helps the country move along in a progressive direction, with examples of women being allowed to perform on the shows, albeit wearing bodysuits that cover every bit of skin except on their face and hands, something that is not required of the male wrestlers on the show. Even then, the progressive moves made by this regime are very surface level and limited. Palestinian human rights activist and colleague of Jamal Khasshogi, Iyad El Baghdadi, in a Twitter thread on the arrest of prominent Saudi women’s rights activists summed up the presentation of any new rights for the Saudi population:

What WWE is participating in is an attempt by an autocratic regime to extend their hold on power in a post oil world. They were an early participant in it, and helped normalise it, making it easier and easier for other sports and entertainment franchises to take the obscene amounts of money on offer.

Everybody Goes

One quasi-defence of Punk going to Saudi, to participate on a show that “sounds so shady” was the idea that everyone goes, even Sami Zayn goes now. The rumour with Zayn was not that he was refusing to go; instead it was that, as someone of Syrian descent, he was excluded during a time when relationships between Saudi and Syria were strained. When that was no longer the case, he was allowed to take part. Kevin Owens was rumoured to have opted out of the Saudi shows while his friend wasn’t allowed on them and then started participating when Zayn was allowed on them. After Jamal Khasshogi’s murder, John Cena opted out of doing the shows allegedly due to PR considerations surrounding his burgeoning movie career. Bryan Danielson opted out of going after Khasshogi’s murder and reportedly due to his concerns over the treatment of women and LGBTQ+ people in the country. A year later Danielson was one of the few wrestlers available for an episode of “Smackdown” that took place after a Saudi show because the rest of the roster was being held hostage in Saudi. The other “Smackdown” wrestlers on that show were Brock Lesnar, who had been a passenger on Vince McMahon’s private jet which had been allowed to leave Saudi, and the Miz, who did not participate on either of the 2019 Saudi shows.

In any case, none of these wrestlers were as vocal as Punk was about how awful these shows were, but then again none of them have been as vocally critical about WWE either. Even if he was in a precarious financial position after a draining lawsuit, surely after four years of working for the two biggest wrestling companies in the world, he was in a secure enough financial position where he could refuse to do any Saudi shows. Then again, when WWE first signed the Saudi deal they were in a very financially secure position, having been incredibly profitable for years. The Saudi deal, which, according to the analysis done by Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, has grossed more for them than every “WrestleMania” combined, had the effect of making them insanely profitable. When CM Punk returned to WWE, he told everyone that he was there “…to make money.” When that is your guiding principle, then can anyone really be surprised when there’s no line you won’t cross?

By Chris Gannon // Instagram // X // Bluesky

Career Retrospective: Jaguar Yokota

By Tim Hunter

On July 28 Jaguar Yokota will celebrate her 49th anniversary with a self produced show. That’s right, not her 49th birthday, her 49th in ring anniversary. The inaugural Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame inductee officially made her debut in 1977, which also means that she has wrestled in 6 decades and yet she is in better shape than most veterans in professional wrestling today.

The vastly underappreciated in ring visionary was originally trained by legend Jackie Sato and went on to train most legends in joshi herself including names like Akira Hokuto, Manami Toyota, Aja Kong, Bull Nakano, Bison Kimura, Kyoko and Takako Inoue, Megumi Kudo, Mima Shimoda, Sumie Sakai, Combat Toyoda and many others. Many of the most brutal and impressive moves you still see being used regularly in the sport today were either invented, or at least popularized by Yokota, often without proper credit given. I mean why is it called the Tiger Driver ‘91 when Yokota did it in 1982? The Ganzo Bomb was often thought to be one of the most dangerous and rarest moves you’ll ever see, looking more like an accident than anything else when it was performed by Kawada and Misawa in the late nineties, but to the surprise of many, it can be seen executed to devastating effect in very recently discovered footage of a Jaguar Yokota vs Devil Masami match in 1983. There is a review of that match in our Retro section by the great Peter Edge this week, check it out!

Her legendary bouts against Devil Masami, as well as Lioness Asuka from the first half of the 1980s are mandatory watches for any wrestling connoisseur. After watching those matches, anyone who loves the lucharesu amalgamation that is so prevalent in today’s professional wrestling will soon realise that Jaguar Yokota must be recognised as one of the earliest pioneers of the style. She combined the hard hitting and technical style she trained ferociously for hours every day in the AJW dojo with the experience she gained from her trips to Mexico. Jaguar Yokota would have a legendary series of matches against luchadora La Galactica stemming from her time in Mexico as well.

Yokota, who made her in ring debut as Rimi Yokota on July 28 1977 at only 15 years old, would quickly prove herself as a top talent, managing to win the junior title 2 years later and going on to win the prestigious WWWA singles championship from her master, the legendary Jackie Sato in 1981 at only 19 years old. The fascinating thing about this match and one of those things from that era of joshi wrestling that looks quite strange from today’s point of view, is that the match was a shoot pin rules match, which means the winner of the match was not predetermined. It was believed that Jaguar would always win against her trainer in a shoot pin rules match at this point in their respective careers, so the Matsunaga brothers likely expected the title change, but it was not a guarantee by any means. This also doesn’t mean that Jackie Sato was screwed out of her title as portrayed in the Netflix show “Queen of Villains” per se, she was well aware of the possible consequences going into the match. Shoot pin rules matches were a strange mix between shoot and work, which probably wouldn’t work today, but they were no doubt a tool for the Matsunaga brothers, owners and bookers of All Japan Women, to get around wrestler’s egos and politicking.

Yokota held the title for over 800 days before dropping it to La Galactica in a mask vs hair lucha de apuestas match in 1983, only to regain it a month later and hold it for another 2 years. She would have another legendary match with La Galactica in September of the following year. Jaguar Yokota had to relinquish the title in 1985 due to a shoulder and back injury that would ultimately lead to her first retirement. Devil Masami had the honour to be Yokota’s final opponent as they had a quick but excellent bout before her retirement ceremony on 15 February 1986, much to the chagrin of Yokota’s forever rival, Lioness Asuka. Asuka was extremely upset about the circumstances of Jaguar’s retirement, as she always wanted to be the one to retire her in another shoot pin rules match. Asuka had some of the most incredible matches of the 1980s against Jaguar Yokota, and she believed that she was the only wrestler to possess the in ring prowess to defeat Yokota in a shoot pin rules match. Alas, she would not get the opportunity to prove it. In an emotional scene at Jaguar’s retirement show a teary eyed Asuka attacked Yokota after she pinned Devil Masami with her classic straight jacket suplex, but their scuffle quickly turned into a big hug between all three wrestlers before “The Unkillable Champion” received her flowers in a sole spotlight to an otherwise darkened arena. A beautiful retirement ceremony for a legendary wrestler.

When All Japan Women held their legendary “Big Egg Wrestling Universe” show at the Tokyo Dome in 1994, Jaguar Yokota decided to do a one time return match. The tag team exhibition where she teamed with her student Bison Kimura to face her classic rival Lioness Asuka teaming with Yumi Ogura went to a time limit draw and it went so well that Yokota was inspired to return to the ring full time the following year, almost 10 years after her initial retirement. Not only that, she also decided to open her own promotion, “Jd Star”, where she wrestled for another 3 years before retiring for a second time in 1998. Yokota would never really push herself as the top star in her company. She gave that honor to old rival Lioness Asuka. Her final match in her second run however, would once again go to Devil Masami. Jaguar would start a family soon after retiring for the second time and stayed away from wrestling for another 5 years, but soon enough the wrestling bug would bite again.

Since returning to the ring in 2003 she has mostly worked as a freelancer for a whole slew of promotions. Yokota sold Jd’ after her second retirement and after another owner change in 2001, the new owner came up with the concept of “athresses”, a combination between actress and athlete in a vain attempt to find the next big idol star wrestler. In a way this was probably the prototype for the concept of today’s promotion Actwres girl’Z if nothing else. Jaguar Yokota would still appear for the promotion in her second comeback, but she would remain a freelancer. Jd’ would fold in 2007, but they put on 2 special Jd’ anniversary shows in 2016 and 2018. Kyoko Inoue, a student of Yokota’s, would start the promotion “Diana” in 2011 which could be considered as Jaguar’s main promotion since then. Today, Jaguar Yokota is also a regular guest on the critically acclaimed “Sareee-ISM” shows.

Jaguar Yokota was a trailblazer, a pioneer and an absolute bedrock for today’s wrestling as a whole, not just in joshi. Where many would point to the King’s Road, or to Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat as the historical innovators of today’s wrestling style, I will point to Jaguar Yokota who did their style and used the maneuvers that made them famous before any of them. You can pluck any of her all time classics with Devil Masami and Lioness Asuka from over 40 years ago, insert them into a major show from today and they would hold up effortlessly, in most cases probably still steal the show entirely.

Another lesson from Jaguar Yokota yet to be learned by many other veterans in the pro wrestling business is to not overexert yourself forever and take some well needed breaks. Today, Jaguar Yokota is still in incredible shape. Despite working one of the hardest styles you can imagine, taking horrific looking bumps day in and day out for many years in the eighties, she is looking healthier today and is less overexposed in her role as the in ring legend than many of her colleagues 10 or 15 years younger than her. Jaguar Yokota still regularly takes bumps and pulls of maneuvers that a very low percentage of people in their mid sixties could ever do and it never feels unwelcome to see her booked against wrestlers who could be her grandchildren. One of very few wrestlers in her age range that I hope to see for many more years to come.

The 49th Anniversary show at the end of the month looks to be a fun retrospective on Yokota’s career and her wide range of influence with lots of her trainees and her trainees’ trainees on the card. There’s big star wrestlers from STARDOM like both the World of Stardom (red belt) champion Saya Kamitani and Wonder of Stardom (white belt) champion Starlight Kid (assuming they both retain their titles at STARDOM’s PPV the week before), as well as IWGP Women’s champion and freelancer Sareee. Even AEW’s Hikaru Shida is on the show. DASH Chisako and Risa Sera who had an insane hardcore match earlier in the year will meet again in a threeway with Mochi Natsumi and besides the joshi all star line up we also get a men’s tag and a unique Variable Rules Battle Royal for the Artemis Royal Championship on the show, where wrestlers can only be eliminated by pinfall or submission and whenever a wrestler scores two eliminations uninterrupted back to back, they win the match. If two wrestlers remain and nobody has scored two eliminations in a row, the match becomes a regular 1v1 match. It’s actually a fun inventive way to make sense of pin break ups in elimination matches, which are one of my personal pet peeves.

By Tim Hunter

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