ESPN’s Marc Raimondi has an interesting article looking at the inside story of how CM Punk returned to professional wrestling with AEW a few weeks ago.
Raimondi’s in-depth look at Punk’s return revealed that while at the United Center waiting for his debut, Punk received a text from his lawyer urging him to sign his AEW contract before walking out through the curtain. Eventually, Punk officially signed his AEW contract 30 minutes before Rampage went on the air.
Punk, as previously reported, also paid for the ice cream bars that were distributed to all fans at the United Center that day. He ordered 15,000 bars from Pretty Cool Ice Cream on August 2 and paid a deposit. Salls Cree, the owner of the ice cream business, said that the order would have normally cost $84,000 but she gave Punk a discount and admitted she had no idea what all the ice cream bars were for. She only realized the next day when she saw the segment on YouTube and her Instagram was filled with messages to buy Punk’s ice cream.
It was also revealed in the article that two weeks before his return, Punk contacted Pro Wrestling Tees owner Ryan Barkan to tell him the news and to design a t-shirt. After getting hooked up with a designer, AEW quickly approved it and PWTees promised a delivery for August 20. The initial batch of t-shirts were printed at a different warehouse to keep the news from getting out to the PWTees staff. To date, nearly 100,000 t-shirts worldwide have been sold.
You can read the full article at ESPN.COM.
