Along with the drama involving The Elite (Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks and CM Punk), the legal issues from the AEW All Out brawl incident from last year are still active.
The return of Punk is scheduled for the June 17 AEW Collision premiere. While Punk and The Elite will generally be apart, they will occasionally be together backstage.
Despite the former AEW World Heavyweight Champion’s impending return, the two sides have not reconciled, as PWMania.com previously reported.
The Young Bucks’ absence from the promotion was not addressed in the early episodes of the AEW All Access reality series, which instead focused on their return. They stated that they did not want to discuss it on the program.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that although The Elite had recorded interviews for the program in which they discussed it and even made a passing reference to the reason for their absence for a few months, those interviews were ultimately cut from the program out of concern for legal repercussions.
“They did interviews. They talked about it. They never mentioned Punk’s name because they weren’t allowed to mention his name, but they did interviews to beat around the bush on the story. Even that was edited out because of the fear of legal reprisal. The biggest issue isn’t even necessarily Tony, and it isn’t most of the guys. It is the legal threats and because of what those are, Tony is playing it very careful to the point of no one mentioning it. On the reality show, CM Punk’s name was never mentioned once. I knew they would never talk about the thing, but they didn’t even allude to anything close to it.”
Meltzer continued by saying that this complicated the plot of them coming back.
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
