CM Punk signing with TNA Wrestling was a very real possibility in 2023. So much so, his first opponent had already been decided.
AEW terminated CM Punk’s contract following All In: London in 2023. Months later, he would return to WWE at Survivor Series when the company came through Chicago. However, before Punk reached that point, he had conversations and almost signed with TNA.
TNA Wrestling’s Steve Maclin recently spoke with Pro Wrestling Illustrated. During the discussion, Maclin revealed that Scott D’Amore informed him that if CM Punk had signed with the company, he was set to be his first opponent.
“If you want some behind-the-scenes dirt that nobody knows about,” Steve Maclin began. “CM Punk, before almost possibly signed with TNA — was coming in and I was gonna be his first challenger, which I found out right as Scott D’Amore was getting let go or was let go. We were having dinner one night and he let me know, ‘Yeah, Punk was gonna almost sign there and then you were gonna be his first challenger.’ I was like, ‘Sh*t!’
“That would have been cool. You see his time from coming back into wrestling, what happened at AEW and to even WWE, it just shows the star that he is now and that he’s always kind of been that way… that culture. He’s literally a cult of personality. If you wanna play the cliché to the song. But he just shows the magnitude that he’s one of the last alive superstars.
Steve Maclin recalls interactions with CM Punk
“There were a few times he was behind the scenes in Chicago (for TNA). It was cool to just see him… I’m like, ‘Oh, CM Punk, what’s up, man?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, what’s up Mr. Maclin?’ I was like, ‘Cool. Good to see you.’ Because he was really good to me when I was an extra in WWE and you always hear the horror stories — an extra — when you say hello to people, like, people shun you and stuff but he was very respectful and I never forgot that. That’s always something in wrestling that I never forget is the people that were nice to me on the way up.” [H/T: Fightful]
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What do you make of Steve Maclin’s comments? How different do you think the wrestling landscape would be right now had CM Punk signed with TNA? Let us know your overall thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
