For those who have asked what happened that CM Punk was not announced for AEW Collision on Wednesday, PWInsider has provided some details on the situation.
-The rumor making the rounds is that Punk and AEW are again at odds currently, now over the status of the return of Ace Steel. It was noted that in asking around, there does appear to be something to that situation.
-The belief among those PWInsider spoke to, is that Steel was expected to return to AEW in conjunction with Punk next month, working behind the scenes. However, the story making the way around AEW backstage on Wednesday at Dynamite is that a decision was made that Steel would not be working backstage at the actual Collision tapings.
-This was said to have left Punk and AEW on opposite sides of the discussion, which in turn led to Punk being removed from all promotional material that had been released for the AEW Collision series on Wednesday.
-One person believed MJF replaced Punk in the promotional graphic for the series, but PWInsider has not been able to confirm this.
-IMPACT Wrestling sources told PWInsider they had interest in bringing Ace Steel in for a tryout and when the invitation was passed on several weeks ago, the belief was that meant he was either AEW or WWE bound. So the speculation with the timing fits in that a return to ASEW was on the table for Steel.