CM Punk fans may not want to get their hopes up for his wife A.J. Lee to be joining him in All Elite Wrestling.
The 42-year-old Punk returned to pro wrestling after a seven-year hiatus to incredible fanfare on “AEW Rampage” at the United Center in Chicago on Aug. 20. It immediately raised hopes that Lee, a former WWE Divas champion and one of the early ignitors of the company’s women’s revolution, could eventually join him. She left the business in 2015 because of an injury to her cervical spine and the messy circumstances around Punk’s WWE departure.
Her name has begun to come up again recently. Punk gave her a shout-out in one of his recent promos. Also, AEW women’s champion Britt Baker teased wanting a mixed tag match between her and boyfriend Adam Cole, who is currently a free agent, and a Punk-Lee team during a panel discussion at the Planet Comicon in Kansas City last week. She said Lee returning to team with Punk would be “giving the fans what they want.”
“I think for the fans to see both of them in a wrestling ring again in 2021, let alone not in WWE. That alone would be evolutionary,” Baker said. “That would be such a moment. So, for that moment alone, I would love to see her in AEW, I would love to see her in the ring with me.”
Punk says not so fast.
He shot down the idea of Lee, 34, returning when asked if she was interested or if him being around wrestling again might spark her desire to return.
“I just want to say, no,” Punk said. “Just because [of] her neck. The reason she stopped wrestling is because of her neck. She’s got a bad neck, you know. I wouldn’t want her to jeopardize [her] health and neither would she, so we’ll put an end to that rumor right now.”
One person Punk would like to step back into a ring with is Daniel Bryan. The two worked together in Ring of Honor when he was Bryan Danielson and then again in WWE. Punk fanned the flames of the reports Bryan is heading to AEW on “Dynamite” last week. He told the crowd – which was doing Bryan’s signature “Yes!” chants, that “that’s somebody else’s shtick, and you might just need to be a little bit more patient, OK.” Bryan, who wrestled his last match for WWE in April, will debut at the “All Out” pay-per-view on Sunday, according to BodySlam.net.
Punk, who will return to the ring against Darby Allin at All Out, lit up with excitement when asked about what AEW potentially adding he and Bryan in a short amount of time would signal.
“That’s somebody that I look at and I go, man wrestling him was always fun,” Punk said. “It was never a headache and God I would like to do that again. I would like to do that again soon. It’s a big deal.
“The guy was in the WrestleMania main event. He’s freshly removed from television. He’s a big deal. He’s a very, very big deal and I think that signals to pro wrestling fans that this is the place to be. This is what I want to watch.”