CM Punk in AEW: Part 5 – The MJF feud begins in late 2021 | Column

This was previously part of a book I had written and released on CM Punk’s initial debut in All Elite Wrestling to winning his first World Championship, 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 and Part 4 here.

I’ll be going into more detail here with regards to ratings and viewership in terms of quarter-hour segments and what they meant for both All Elite and Punk as a draw. All of these come courtesy of Wrestlenomics (who have a great Patreon account).

Despite the fact that AEW would not have another PPV show until 2022, the company would not hold off on getting arguably their hottest act and their most promising up-and-comer in the ring together. Punk would confront Maxwell Jacob Friedman/MJF on the November 17th 2021 episode of Dynamite, after MJF claimed that there was no one in the AEW locker room who was on his level. 

Enter CM Punk.

November 2021

Punk would stare down the upstart scarf-wearing star before Friedman offered a hand to Punk. The Second City Saint would simply smile and leave Maxwell hanging as he turned to leave the ring…teasing that something was going to happen in the near future.

The quarter-hour ratings that included that segment were very impressive, with the top of the first hour drawing around 1,049,000 in viewership. This was up from 961,000 from the prior 15 minutes and the segment after would drop back down to 969,000. 

Punk would face QT Marshall in a match on Dynamite for the Thanksgiving episode of the show on Wednesday, November 24th, a show that drew 898,000 viewers on average with a 0.31. Before Punk could actually wrestle Marshall, he was interrupted by MJF, who would cut one of the best promos of his career to date at that point:

“Doesn’t feel so good getting interrupted, does it, Punky Brewster? You know, quite frankly– [‘Shut the f*ck up’] No. Quite frankly, you really hurt my feelings last week. I extended out my hand like a gentleman. And you really hurt my feelings, man. I mean, it was almost as bad as the time you quit, took your ball and went home like a little bitch. Do you know what was great though? The Pipe Bomb. Everybody loves the Pipe Bomb, right Chicago? Yeah, my god, so good, legendary. What you would call a great promo. And I think it’s fair to say, Punky, that the Pipe Bomb is your best moment. Except here’s the problem, bud: every MJF moment is the best MJF moment. Cause unlike you I’m not a one-trick pony. And don’t get it twisted, I respect you, man. I respect everything you’ve done. Hell, I even respect the fact that you’re straight edge. Granted, never in my wildest dreams could I have possibly imagined a straight-edge man could look so much like a meth addict. And it must be extremely difficult to be straight edge considering if I had your face, I’d need to down eight shots of whiskey just to look myself in the mirror. But you know what I can’t respect, CM? It’s how you’ve handled our little situation here. And you can pretend there isn’t one, but there is. There is.”

Excerpt from the promo via Cagematch

AEW Dynamite Thanksgiving 2021 Ratings

There are always mitigating circumstances when it comes to looking at tv ratings and overall viewerships, but when you consider that Wednesday in 2021 was a day before Thanksgiving in the United States, there was a good chance that a lot of people were probably travelling to see family and this show would not have had a good number.

Having said that, the Thanksgiving show was supposed to start off hot, with Punk making his way out to the ring first before being interrupted by MJF. The opening segment of the show drew around 968,000 viewers, again an impressive number considering the time of year, but the second 15-minute segment, which would include the final 6 minutes of the promo battle between MJF and Punk and Punk’s match with QT Marshall, would drop to an average viewership of around 939,000.

December 2021

01/12/21

The first few weeks of the feud produced some impressive numbers for Dynamite, and December also led to even more growing viewership figures for the two stars. As I previously stated, this is what wrestling fans had been waiting for, a storyline that CM Punk could really sink his teeth into and tell the sort of story that we knew he was capable of on the mic and in the ring.

The December 1st 2021 episode of Dynamite would see Punk facing Lee Moriarty in the second segment of the night, which unlike several weeks prior and what appeared to be a fairly standard trend, actually gained viewers.

Tens of thousands of people not only tuned in to see the match between Punk and Moriarty, but the match went into the following segment and saw the viewership grow even more.

MJF and Punk would cut a promo in the ring together after the match, and although we aren’t privy to the minute by minute ratings, there’s no doubt that MJF appearing then drew the biggest viewership of the night, as the 8:30 PM to 8:45 PM segment managed to get the highest quarter hour of the night, bringing in around 896,000 viewers on average.

December 1st 2021 Quarter Hour Ratings

08/12/21

Punk would open the December 8th episode of Dynamite and the first segment would draw 922,000, rising up to 980,000 when MJF would make his entrance for the Dynamite Diamond Battle Royale match.

Once again, nothing else on the show would come even close to the highs that Punk and MJF were able to produce, and whilst you can attribute that to the fact that they opened the show on both the opening segments of the early December 2021 episodes, the trend is clear: the storyline between Punk and MJF was the hottest thing in the company at this point, and we were still weeks away from the two actually wrestling.

Now, had both Punk and MJF been aware of the trends of viewership on Wednesday nights to orchestrate going out to open the show when the viewership was highest, thus creating the effect of being the hottest acts? It’s certainly something worth considering, but there was no doubt that the two men were producing the most compelling content on AEW programming, and possibly all of pro wrestling at that time.

December 8th 2021 Quarter Hour Ratings

22/12/21

The Wednesday, December 15th 2021 episode of Dynamite was the ‘Winter Is Coming’ episode of the show, and Punk was not in a featured role on the show. Winter Is Coming was built around a major match between Bryan Danielson and Hangman Adam Page. That show drew over 1,000,000 viewers almost throughout. Winter Is Coming had almost become a ‘free’ PPV event at that point, with the previous year’s iteration showcasing a Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley match in the main event and the debut of WCW and TNA Icon, Sting.

The following week, however, would see Punk teaming with Sting and Punk’s first opponent in the company: Darby Allin. The dream-team trio would face Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood & MJF in the main event of the December 22nd 2021 show, and the episode itself drew another big rating for the company.

All but one segment would manage to get a viewership of over 1,000,000 on that episode (again according to WrestleNomics), and even though trends up to this episode would suggest that a large amount of fans would stop watching as the night went on; the fact that we were finally getting Punk vs MJF in some guise in the main event was a big draw for later in the night (which could debunk the earlier question of whether they really were draws…or it was just because they appeared at the start of the broadcast).

29/12/21

As you’ve probably noticed by this point, there have been a few anomalies when it comes to the initial ratings success for AEW and CM Punk in his first few months with the company.

Following an absolutely massive show with Punk and MJF in the main event, the December 29th 2021 episode of the show would feature the two men cutting promos during different segments during the night.

Punk’s segment would take place in the 9:15 – 9:30 PM slot, and it actually lost a small amount of viewers, around 10,000, from the previous segment. The following two quarter-hours, not featuring Punk, would also gain with the final quarter-hour drawing over a million.

What was the reason? Again there could be mitigating circumstances, but up to this point it appeared as though Punk and MJF were ratings GOLD, so was this just a completely random blip?

Jake Skudder

Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator for NationalWorld. 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. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop and The Hard Times.

Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.

He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.

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