CM Punk couldn't go back to the place where he got sick, but he is now in AEW and healthier than ever.
While Vince McMahon may not acknowledge AEW as competition, and others will often say the "war" is blown out of proportion by fans as there are friends in all companies, there is a healthy competition between the two promotions.
If you don't believe that, you're lying to yourself.
"I think it'd be straight up, telling a big ol' lie if you said you didn't want to beat them in whatever metrics they deem as successful, but I don't....if you ask them, they'll say that AEW is not their competition, which is great, I think everybody sees through that," CM Punk said on WFAN. "If you ask us, I'll say yeah, they are competition. However, we're focused on what we're doing and we're focused on the people in the building who paid to see AEW and we're not so much worried about everything else. I know the TNT executives love ratings. That's what their business is driven by. I'm focused on the fans and that's how you grow your business. That's how you will eventually grow AEW. If you're talking about head-to-head competition with WWE, they have a 30+ year headstart. AEW has been around for two years. I like what we've been doing and it's fun again for me. I'm not trying to bankrupt anybody, put anybody out of business, but it 100% (is competition). If you say it's not, you're fooling yourself or you want to pretend like somebody doesn't exist."
Punk is set to make his return to the ring on Sunday when he faces Darby Allin at AEW All Out.
Punk previously commented on ratings and how it's not something he pays attention to. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
