Tony Khan Holding Back Marquee Matches For CM Punk

Since arriving in AEW, CM Punk has been fighting his way back into contention after seven years away from pro wrestling, and aside from his debut match with Darby Allin, hasn’t had much in the way of marquee matches.

However, as revealed to PWTorch’s Wade Keller, AEW President Tony Khan has purposefully been holding off on Punk’s marquee matches, saying the following before last week's edition of AEW: Rampage:

“I see the trend; our numbers are so much better than they were going into the last few months and there has been an unquestionable lift since CM Punk came in. For some reason, I see people trying to discredit Punk all the time, that he hasn’t been a huge lift to our business, and he has been. He is only scratching the surface. I have intentionally in working with him tried to hold back a lot of his biggest marquee matches and stories. Tonight, we are going to get into some of that, Eddie Kingston is here in St. Louis, Eddie is healthy and he is ready to be here. I want to see Punk and Eddie Kingston tonight face-to-face in that ring. I am very excited going forward, maybe at Full Gear to see them lock up. I believe that is a match fans want to see. We’ve been getting Punk reintegrated building him a winning streak and I think it’s worked great. When you look at the rating we did for our first Wednesday back, that was a really strong number last week He was such a huge part of it kicking the show off, wrestling through the entire first segment in a great match. He’s just lifted our business so much, I see people constantly doing really petty stuff trying to discredit him and it’s just ridiculous because he’s done so much for us.”

Kingston vs. Punk has been confirmed for Full Gear, and after a hellacious promo between the two, it seems we’re finally getting a first proper feud for Punk.