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I kept rewriting my first lines of this.
“Do I want to talk about CM Punk?” I asked myself. What could I possibly say that so many other people haven’t already said. I can tell you that I brought a healthy dose of anxiety with me to The First Dance, the sold-out United Center in Chicago playing host to what had been touted as “one of the most historic events in AEW history.”
I’ve been with AEW from the beginning, an early convert, and while I never doubted what they might be able to give us, the nature of wrestling, or at least wrestling as it had been dominated by WWE, gave me pause about what might really happen on Aug. 20. Would there be a needless swerve? Would we have to wait until the end of a one-hour show, time dripping by as a restless audience chanted “CM Punk! CM Punk!” ruining the rest of the show with the chant like so many WWE audiences had ruined their shows for years.
My anxiety as the show opened made my stomach sour. The echoing and dare I say thunderous Punk chants nearly shaking the United Center made my heart beat faster. What was going to happen if this was anything less than flawless? How could it possibly live up to fan expectations after seven years?
Distorted static sounded quickly, followed by the familiar guitar riff to Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality.” You could hardly hear it over the roar of the crowd. I don’t remember the last time I’d heard a crowd so loud, but it’s been a long, long time. I honestly didn’t think I’d get emotional, but when I saw Punk walk out onto that ramp, seven years older, gray dashing his trademark beard, hair slicked back … my eyes welled up with tears.
Punk was never my guy. I got into wrestling way too late to have seen the Summer of Punk or ridden the wave that was him ever so briefly being pushed to the top of the card. But in the moments after his music hit for the first time in seven years, I think we were all CM Punk fans. How could you not be? It wasn’t just his return that was emotional, it was the tears in his eyes, the look of being overwhelmed in maybe a way he hadn’t expected. In one moment, maybe the years of emotional and physical abuse he suffered at the hands of the WWE wasn’t gone, but it was at least numbed, pro wrestling made new again by the fans who’d waited and by the promotion, AEW, that was very much founded on a belief that it could change something. Could provide some sort of alternative. Could change the world.
Maybe that’s ambitious. Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks have been saying they wanted to change the world for years, long before the inception of AEW. I’ve always believed in that message, but I think that intangible thing became tangible when AEW let CM Punk fall in love with wrestling again.
I think a lot of people don’t “get” why I love wrestling. But that’s never mattered to me. Not when I can relish electric moments like I did on Aug. 20. Nothing can touch pro wrestling when it’s at its best, nothing at all.
Take a look. Maybe you can feel the magic, too.
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
