WWE reportedly turns down CM Punk’s offer to return

Following reports yesterday (Oct. 10) that WWE and CM Punk weren’t talking about a possible reunion, Dave Meltzer offered an update to his reporting from last week the two sides were negotiating Punk’s return to the company he left in 2014.

On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer said that WWE decided against hiring the recently fired AEW star:

“They turned him down.

“The decision was a no. He wanted to go there and the decision was a no. I mean, it can always change and it was brought up to me that there is no such thing as no forever when it comes to WWE but it’s no for now.

“It’s Vince [McMahon]’s decision. Vince, Nick Khan, Paul Levesque [Triple H] and, obviously, they decided that the negatives outweighed the positives.”

Meltzer reminded his listeners this isn’t the first time WWE’s passed on Punk’s services since their tumultuous split nearly a decade ago. FOX was said to have wanted the company to hire him when they picked up the rights to SmackDown in 2019 (the broadcaster put Punk on their short-lived WWE Backstage cable studio show). They also spoke last year when Punk was out injured — and Tony Khan was sifting through the wreckage of his blow-up with The Elite. But there was really no decision to be made there since he was still under contract to AEW.

“But this time they could, and they decided to pass.”

Unless Punk is willing to go to Japan or to work for a lower profile promotion like Impact, WWE held all the cards this time. But even if circumstances change, the company will be left with the same dilemma due to Punk’s reputation of being hard to work with:

“It could always change and it was made very clear to me that if WWE’s business went down, they know it’s a card that they could play but is it worth it?”

This still leaves the question of the references to Punk WWE’s seemed to be making on recent episodes of Raw. But for now, signs are we won’t be hearing “Cult of Personality” (or “This Fire Burns” on WWE programming any time soon.