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CM Punk’s run as AEW world champion has hit an early bump in the road.
Just five days after becoming champion, the 43-year-old Punk announced on Friday night’s episode of Rampage that he’s suffered an injury that will require surgery. Punk is not relinquishing the AEW world championship, but an interim champion will be crowned in his absence.
Punk described the injury as being a broken “wheel.” He promised to return bigger, faster, stronger, and hungrier than ever before.
With tears in his eyes, Punk addressed the crowd on Rampage. He told the fans he had both good and bad news for them.
“The bad news is I’m injured and I need surgery. A couple of things are broken. The biggest one is my heart because I love nothing more than performing for all of you, and I wanted to go on one hell of a run. That’s the bad news,” Punk said.
“The good news is, I can still do all that. I told you I was going to go until the wheels fall off. Well, the wheels are still there, they haven’t fallen off. It’s just that one of them happens to be broken. But I’ve come back from worse. I’ve felt better than I feel today, but I am here to tell you that I’ve also felt a hell of a lot worse. This is a bump in the road. It hurts. It hurts like hell. I want to wrestle for you.”
Punk won the AEW world championship from Adam “Hangman” Page in the main event of Double or Nothing on Sunday. Punk then suffered the injury on Dynamite this Wednesday. He teamed with FTR to defeat Max Caster, Austin Gunn, and Colten Gunn on the show.
The interim AEW world champion will be crowned at AEW and NJPW’s co-promoted Forbidden Door pay-per-view on Sunday, June 26.
AEW has announced that a battle royal will open Dynamite next Wednesday, with the winner advancing to face Jon Moxley in the main event of the episode later that night. The winner of that match will face either Hiroshi Tanahashi or Hirooki Goto in the interim title bout at Forbidden Door.
NJPW stars Tanahashi and Goto are facing each other at NJPW’s Dominion event on Sunday, June 12 to decide the other competitor for the interim AEW world title match. Tanahashi was originally slated to challenge Punk at Forbidden Door.
Seven years after walking out of WWE, Punk made his return to pro wrestling when he signed with AEW last August. This is his first world championship since 2013.
