CM Punk in AEW: Part 8 – The MJF feud in March 2022 and the Revolution PPV | Column
This was previously part of a book I had written and released on CM Punk’s debut to initial World Title 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 and Part 7 here.
02/03/22
The March 2nd episode of Dynamite would be the go-home show for the Revolution PPV event, and to generate even more heat for this massive rematch, CM Punk would end up getting busted open by MJF.
In some (potentially) deliberate foreshadowing*, this would also be the night that MJF would recant a famous promo back at the Second City Saint, noting that “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. This Sunday at REVOLUTION I’m going to show the world and all these mindless sheep that I’m the devil himself!”
This, of course, harkened back to a Ring of Honor promo that Punk had cut in the company, and considering Tony Khan opened up the episode confirming that he had purchased Ring of Honor that week, it was an extra way to build towards the PPV that weekend.
The segment itself, which took place in the fifth quarter of the night, drew 977,000 viewers overall. Much like the week prior, the show started at over the million mark and would drop throughout the night, APART from Punk and MJF’s segment, which actually brought in 21,000 viewers from the prior fifteen minute quarter (956,000).
*Maxwell would also later use the ‘Devil’ gimmick as part of All Elite programming, only for it to be ‘stolen’ and used by Adam Cole in the major storyline of Maxwell’s first run as AEW Champion. It would then be taken back by MJF and he still calls himself the devil in 2026
AEW Revolution 2022
The Dog Collar match from AEW Revolution 2022 between Punk and MJF is regarded as one of the greatest gimmick matches in All Elite history. Critical reception was impressive, with our own Dave Meltzer giving the match a ****¾ in that week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer.
The estimated buys for the PPV event itself were also impressive, with Wrestlenomics stating that the show got around 175,000 overall. This was higher than the Full Gear prediction at 155,000, but still a lot lower than the initial return of Punk at AEW ALL OUT 2021, which as noted, drew around 215,000 buys.
When looking at the overall card, it’s clear that Tony Khan and co wanted to bounce back big from the drop in buyrates from Full Gear, with a show featuring the likes of Jon Moxley vs Bryan Danielson, Adam Page vs Adam Cole in the main event for the AEW World Championship and of course, the bloody spectacle of the Dog Collar match. Punk would eventually get the win, avenging his loss from Dynamite after Wardlow seemingly turned on MJF ahead of Punk’s eventual run towards the AEW Championship.
Fascinatingly, it was claimed (well over a year later) by Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net that Punk actually had a backstage altercation with William Regal at the event: “Regal’s arrival in All Elite Wrestling was an incredibly substantial one for the promotion, as his experience and incredible wealth of knowledge was welcomed with open arms by the AEW roster. Well… most of them. Multiple sources have confirmed to me details about an incident that took place between CM Punk and William Regal, which occurred when Regal made his AEW debut. In the altercation between the two, Punk refused to shake Regal’s hand, and would then get in the legends face, telling him that he did not like him, he did not trust him, and that Regal was a ‘stooge for Triple H.’”
As noted, this was reported well over a year later in September 2023, and whilst it would’ve been a strange ‘out there’ story if it were to be brought up in 2022, it added to the complex story and history of altercations that would unfortunately end up defining CM Punk’s later tenure with AEW.
23/03/22
Punk would remain off of AEW programming following the PPV until the March 23rd episode of AEW Dynamite, where he would face off against FTR member Dax Harwood.
The match would open the night, with the first quarter drawing a very strong 1,221,000 viewers overall. Dax vs Punk would also go into the second quarter of the night for around three minutes, which only dropped to 1,140,000.
It absolutely helped that the match itself was good in-ring, scoring a ****¼ from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that week, keeping fans engaged throughout with two of the world’s best going at it for the first time in singles action.
When you look at the numbers for the opening segment/quarter of a show, you have to bear in mind that there will always be some bump from the overflow of people watching the programme prior. Despite that, only losing around 190,000 viewers into the second quarter-hour is impressive, and shows that the lack of an ad break in the first quarter-hour helped to retain a ton of eyeballs for the rest of the broadcast.
Despite the show remaining on average above 1 million viewers for the majority of Dynamite, nothing would match the Punk segment, and the main event featuring Chris Jericho and Daniel Garcia vs Dark Order actually dropped to 919,000.
Road to AEW Double or Nothing 2022
The next few months would see Punk back to having one-off matches, much like he did on Rampage following his PPV debut against Darby Allin.
As we’ve already covered, when Punk was not in active feud, his segments tended to drop fairly drastically, so would that be the case again following his biggest All Elite feud with MJF and a blow-away match against Dax Harwood?
30/03/22
Punk would open the March 30th episode of Dynamite facing Max Caster of The Acclaimed. The bout only lasted during the opening quarter of the night, drawing 1,129,000 viewers overall.
The second segment of the night would drop to around 1,011,000 viewers, with Jon Moxley taking on Jay Lethal in the featured bout of that 15-minute slot.
I bring this up, because when you consider that the show lost 118,000 viewers quarter-to-quarter (again factoring in that all important lead-in audience), because it points to Punk’s match in the prior week actually not making much of a difference when it came to the ratings that night. If anything, Punk’s match going over into the second quarter of the night LOST more viewers. Could that be because of more viewers accidentally staying on the channel before switching over? Potentially, but it’s certainly worth bearing this in mind when looking at the overall success of Punk in his run up to his first AEW Championship win.
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.