Bully Ray Says AEW Should Promote CM Punk’s Return in Advance

It has been heavily reported that CM Punk will be returning to AEW, and Bully Ray believes his return should announced in advance instead of being a surprise. While Punk was not mentioned in the AEW Collision announcement, a WarnerMedia email did mention him in association with the new show which required a Warner Bros. Discovery to state, “CM Punk is not affiliated with TNT’s AEW Collision.”

Regardless of whether Punk returns with Collision specifically or not, it does seem evident that he will be returning and Ray talked about how he would handle it on the latest Busted Open Radio. You can check out some highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:

On how he’d handle CM Punk’s return: “I would announce it. Because I’d want the entire wrestling community to be sitting in their chairs watching it live on television, so now I can count that my rating was higher.”

On Punk being able to draw ratings for AEW: “People will say ratings don’t matter but when the rating is good, people will scream to the top of their lungs about how great the rating was. It actually does still mean something to some people in the industry. Even though it’s outdated, it’s still a gauge we’ve got to go to, because if a company puts on must-see television, people will still be doing the old school thing of sitting in front of their television sets.”