Since there have been questions about this on twitter and a few emails in the last few days, here is the latest on CM Punk and the details on everything from Monday night’s Raw.
Apparently, even though a source told Dave Meltzer that Punk was going to be on Raw on Monday, Punk actually has not had any contact with WWE. The Paul Heyman segment was decided on days before Monday’s Raw and was done to acknowledge the obvious CM Punk chants at the start of the show. WWE decided against using AJ Lee to save her from dealing with Punk chants.
The belief now is that there is zero percent chance of Punk appearing at this year’s WrestleMania. Some wrestlers are not unhappy to see him off the card since it opens up a spot and potentially could mean slightly better paydays for everyone since Punk would have gotten six or seven figures for WrestleMania.
As we first reported, Punk is the number two merchandise seller behind John Cena so that is why the continue to sell his merchandise. The upcoming release of the Scooby Doo WrestleMania Mystery DVD also includes CM Punk but he was removed from the promos for that DVD. The production team was told to not include him in any live event or historical pieces going forward.
The Wrestling Observer website reported this week that an early version of the Raw script had Wade Barrett coming out to give the crowd the “Bad News” about Punk not being there but they removed that segment from the show. We’ll see what happens from here but Punk is free to do whatever he wants in July when his contract expires.
