AEW's CM Punk Had Been Planning Ice Cream Bar Giveaway For 2 Years

CM Punk has seemingly been planning his wrestling return for some time.

The Straight Edge Superstar returned to professional wrestling to open AEW Rampage: The First Dance and fans in attendance at the United Center were given an ice cream bar by CM Punk while they were leaving the venue.

Pretty Cool Ice Cream, the makers of the ice cream bars, have revealed CM Punk actually paid for the bars himself and they noted the former WWE Champion had been planning the giveaway for two years.

They wrote on social media: "The big moment - when @cmpunk thanks his fans for waiting, and to grab some ice cream on him. Were you there?! Since we have been getting a lot of questions, yes the ice cream was on him - it wasn't a publicity stunt dreamed up by promoters. He came to us on his own and asked us to help him do this 2 years ago, and finally the moment was right. Our small team worked tirelessly to hand make every bar, and CM Punk wrote the check for the entire bill himself. That's some real Chicago love right there, city of big shoulders, and big heart."

Punk also explained during the post-Rampage media scrum what the ice cream bars represented.

"The Ice Cream bars were me. That's Andy Kaufman. I used to do it all the time when I would do Q and A's at comic cons and stuff like that; I would bring people doughnuts, pizza. These ice cream bars, to me, represent an idea, an idea that was gift-wrapped to people that didn't bother to take the time to try to understand their audience. This is the easiest home run I've ever hit. This is a legit thank you. You know, John Lester came to the Chicago Cubs and won us a trophy, won us a World Series. When he got traded away, he opened up a tab at a bunch of bars as a way to say thank you to the fans. This is my way to say thank you to the fans," Punk said.

"This is personal for me and timings everything. It just felt right. When I left Ring of Honor, I did not want to go, but I felt I couldn't stay. You can't really explain that to people. It's just something you live through. When I was sick and tired and hurt and I realized that these people wouldn't care if I died today, there'd be another show tomorrow. I knew I had to remove myself from the situation," he continued.

"I didn't know how long it was going to take for me to heal. Then this came along and credit to everybody involved in AEW. It reminded me of places I used to work that I love, where it was not about -- It was just more about the spirit of the thing. Instead of feeling like a house, it felt like a home. That's the best way I can possibly describe it."

H/T to Fightful