Colt Cabana hasn’t been featured on AEW programming for a while and instead, he has been used for ROH. Some have speculated that this might be because of CM Punk.
Punk and Cabana had been best friends for years, but their friendship fell apart after Punk’s appearance on Cabana’s “Art of Wrestling” podcast in November of 2014 because WWE doctor Chris Amann sued them due to Punk’s comments. Cabana claimed that Punk had not kept his promise of covering his legal bills and filed a lawsuit against Punk. Although Punk countersued, both lawsuits were later dismissed.
There’s also been speculation that part of the heat between Hangman Page and Punk is due to Cabana not appearing on television.
While speaking with Forbes to promote Sunday’s All Out PPV, AEW President made it clear that Punk has had no effect on Cabana’s roster status.
“There is certainly a perception out there that I don’t think is accurate that when I purchased Ring of Honor and also [as] some of the contracts were coming up and I was starting to make moves—whether it was renewing them in most cases or not renewing them or in some cases reassigning people—there was a misconception that was perpetuated unfairly that CM Punk had anything to do with me wanting to move Colt Cabana to the Ring of Honor roster when his contract came up.”
Khan continued by noting that Punk had nothing to do with any of the contracts he picked up or the ones he didn’t.
“But in particular, I did pick up Colt Cabana’s contract and gave him a similar contract to do different work,” said Khan. “I don’t know if it was fair that that got perpetuated…I also didn’t think that was fair to Punk.”
On Wednesday’s Dynamite, Punk, who will challenge Jon Moxley for the AEW World Heavyweight Title in the main event of All Out, ripped a fan who was chanting for Cabana.
