Tony Khan says that CM Punk never asked for Colt Cabana to be removed from the AEW roster.
Throughout Punk's time with AEW, rumors suggested that he didn't want Cabana to be on the AEW roster, given their previous falling out.This speculation persisted, especially as Cabana was seemingly shifted to the ROH roster in 2022. At the media scrum after AEW All Out, Punk memorably detailed his issues with Cabana.
During the AEW Full Gear post-show media scrum, Khan was asked about the situation, and he stated that Punk never asked for Cabana to be removed from the AEW roster. He stated that he didn't address the topic at a previous scrum because he wanted to focus on the wrestling that was on the show.
"No. No, he never asked for that. The first time it came up, I think you asked me on a scrum call and I wasn’t looking at you face to face, it was before Death Before Dishonor, I think. He never asked me that. I could have probably addressed it then and I just didn’t comment on it because I wanted to keep talking about the wrestling that was on the show because Colt Cabana was wrestling on the show. You weren’t asking me specifically about the show, so I didn’t answer that there," Khan said.
Khan also commented on Cabana's return to AEW television, when he challenged Chris Jericho for the ROH World Championship on the November 2 episode of AEW Dynamite. He emphasized that the match made a lot of sense, given Cabana's ties to ROH and his history with the company.
"As far as the match with Chris in Baltimore, I thought it made a lot of sense because we had the Ring of Honor Championship Series and Chris Jericho is wrestling so many of the great name in Ring of Honor and when you talk about great people who have won championships in Ring of Honor, we brought in Bandido, Dalton Castle, a lot of great people. When we’ve been booking the shows, I’ve been using Colt Cabana both as a coach and a wrestler in Ring of Honor. I looked at the roster and he’s a very logical challenger because, not only has he held the RIng of Honor Tag Team Championship, but he’s also somebody who has been wrestling in the 2022 Ring of Honor, is undefeated, so I thought he would be a logical challenger for Chris. It’s also a good match," Khan said.
Fightful Select previously reported some of the AEW talent's reactions to Cabana's return. More information is available here.
Catch up on our coverage of AEW Full Gear here. For a full review, check out our post-show podcast on our YouTube channel.
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