The talk of the wrestling world all week has been surrounding the rumors of former WWE Superstars Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) and CM Punk signing with AEW. While neither man has yet to officially confirm anything publicly (they likely won’t), the rumor mill is heavily suggesting that both men have inked their respective deals with AEW and will be debuting for the company over the next few months.
AEW had long-term booking plans laid out leading up to their All Out pay-per-view event, which is set to take place on September 5th in Chicago, Illinois – the hometown of CM Punk. The reported signings of Danielson and Punk now have the company trying to figure out when certain people should debut, and which talents should be involved when they do.
Cassidy Haynes, the founder of Bodyslam.net, joined the “jaBROnies” podcast earlier today and talked about AEW now having to figure out the best way to capitalize off the buzz that has surrounded the company this past week. He said,
“They already had plans for [Bryan Danielson] to debut at Arthur on September 22nd, however that was a couple of weeks ago. Meltzer saying he’s known since May… nahh … they had discussed it internally in May when his contract ran up, but they didn’t start talks until about 2 or 3 weeks ago. So that stuff didn’t start happening until recently.
Then the Punk stuff happened after Bryan. So, they had plans in place for Bryan at Arthur Ashe, and then this Punk stuff happened and it’s kinda’ thrown a wrench into how they want to present everything. Now they’ve got to reformat everything because of that, you know? Because it’s ‘how do you capitalize off this buzz’ and what are they gonna do exactly is what they’re trying to figure out.
Daniel Bryan started talking to them 2 or 3 weeks ago, and he was supposed to do Arthur Ashe and as long as of 2 days ago that was the plan, but they can always change that around. They can always change up when he’s gonna’ debut, but it’s happening. It’s 100% that he’s guaranteed to be there [in AEW].”
For obvious reasons, AEW officials reportedly don’t want to have both of their debuts (which are huge) take place so close together. As you’d expect, the company wants CM Punk to debut in Chicago, which would likely mean that Bryan Danielson’s debut could be moved up or pushed back by a few weeks. AEW’s All Out pay-per-view event takes place on September 5th in Chicago, while AEW’s Arthur Ashe Stadium show in New York City takes place on September 22nd. The show in between those two events is another massive show that will be held from the Prudential Center in New Jersey on September 15th. All three of these shows are expected to be sellouts.
As always, we will have further updates regarding both Bryan Danielson and CM Punk coming to AEW as they become available.
(h/t to eWn’s Ryan Clark for contributing to this article.)
