CM Punk was initially set to face Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Jimmy Jacobs joined WWE’s creative team as a writer on April 1, 2015. Seven years later, on October 11, 2017, Jacobs was released from his WWE contract for posting a photo on social media with members of the Bullet Club during their invasion of Monday Night RAW.
On Conrad Thompson’s The Insiders Podcast, Jacobs discussed his early interactions with CM Punk and the working relationship he shared with the former AEW World Champion back in the day. Jacobs said,
“He was not kind to me very early on. He thought I was an idiot, and probably I was.”
“It was Punk who approached me about giving him a tape to give to Gabe. So if it weren’t for Punk, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now. Punk was loyal to the people around him and who he saw worked hard.”
Punk won the WWE Championship shortly after Jacobs arrived in WWE.
Jacobs also touched on Punk’s recent fallout with AEW before signing off. The producer said,
“Punk’s a great performer, he’s a great promo. He has a real ‘it’ factor, and he always did. His success is no accident. But today, we are once again living in a pro wrestling world without him. It’s unfortunate to see how the stuff in AEW went down. As a performer, he’s an asset.”
Punk’s scathing comments about the Executive Vice Presidents of AEW at the All Out 2022 media scrum led to a heated backstage brawl which subsequently resulted in the suspension of the Second City Saint, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, and Ace Steel.
Rumors suggest that AEW is negotiating a buyout of the remainder of Punk’s AEW contract and the veteran star’s future in the professional wrestling business is currently up in the air.
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