CM Punk in AEW: Part 10 – AEW Double or Nothing 2022 | Column
This was previously part of a book I had written and released on CM Punk’s run from debut to first AEW Championship win in All Elite Wrestling, covering August 2021 until May 2022. I’ll be uploading it here sporadically, adapted for easier reading online, so please feel free to check it out. You can check out Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here and Part 9 here.
The match between CM Punk and Hangman at AEW Revolution 2022 would once again see the former WWE Champion being lauded by both fans and critics, with our own Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer giving the bout ****½ overall.
The buyrate estimates from WrestleNomics, however, indicate that the show was not the success that Tony Khan and co would likely have wanted, with around 165,000 buys reported, about 10,000 down from AEW Revolution that featured CM Punk vs MJF in a dog collar match. This would finally be the crowning of Punk as the All Elite Wrestling Champion, signalling his arrival as the ‘official’ face of the company going forward.
How MJF factored in
Before the event took place, there was a lot of speculation online regarding MJF and his status in the company, with Maxwell reportedly threatening to walk. Despite this, and the extra hype that was anticipated due to MJF maybe no-showing, reportedly did not make a major difference to the overall buyrate, as reported in that week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter: “It was almost identical to how it was tracking as compared to other shows, as it was tracking at the level of Full Gear (150,000 buys) going in. Basically, there were people who thought all the late pub from the MJF story on social media would lead to a huge increase in buys, but it doesn’t appear to have had any noticeable effect.”
Another issue that the PPV show faced was that it was going up against Game Seven of the Boston Celtics vs. Miami Heat NBA finals, something that probably would’ve hindered the buys (from a US standpoint at least). Dave Meltzer noted at the time that “[Tony] Khan actually studied and found that 79 percent of the time there is not a game seven in the NBA playoffs, so the odds were this would be a free date. But it didn’t work out that way.” It was a gamble from TK, and it didn’t pay off.
In terms of online hype, the show did around what most of the bigger AEW shows did at the time, with around 200,000 Google searches over the weekend. Most of that was attributed by Meltzer in that week’s Observer to the ongoing MJF situation, but as he noted: “on the day of the show, Punk blew everyone away with MJF and Adam Page being a tie for second and nobody else close.”
It wasn’t just the buyrates and online buzz that would signal success for the PPV event, with the live attendance being a sellout of 14,459 fans, making it the third largest show in company history to that point (behind the Arthur Ashe Stadium show and the first Chicago United Center show). However, to that point it was the largest ever for an AEW PPV, and the gate was just under $1.15 million, making it the biggest non-WWE gate in the history of North American pro wrestling up to that point (the previous record was the 2019 NJPW/ROH show in Madison Square Garden).
It is impossible to attribute all of this success to CM Punk, as there were other matches on show that were well-built like MJF vs Wardlow, Thunder Rosa vs Serena Deeb, the Anarchy in the Arena match and The Young Bucks vs The Hardys.
But, in a world where most tend to attribute the gate to a strong main event, you cannot dismiss that CM Punk challenging for the AEW Championship, and in a very likely position to win it, drew a LOT of those fans watching in the arena or live at home on PPV.
Jake is the Head of Audience Development at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling as Head of Media as well as working on the social channels of the company.