Eric Bischoff On Whether Triple H Should Welcome CM Punk Back To WWE - Exclusive

CM Punk's future in wrestling remains unclear following his reported backstage fight with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks after AEW's All Out pay-per-view in September. All four wrestlers were reportedly suspended and stripped of their AEW championships, while AEW released Ace Steel, who was also involved in the altercation. With reports that AEW is considering buying out Punk's contract, fans have naturally wondered about the possibility of Punk returning to WWE, but former WCW President Eric Bischoff — who has been exchanging verbals shots with Punk since 2021 — doesn't see the benefit.

"I don't know what Paul Levesque is thinking, I don't know what their plans are, their strategies are, so I have no idea. I can tell you from my perspective, I wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole," Bischoff said in an exclusive interview with Wrestling Inc.'s Dominic DeAngelo. "I think CM Punk had a mystique because of WWE, and because of the pipe bomb interview, and because he walked out, that created this aura and mystique that [AEW CEO] Tony [Khan] brought to AEW and took advantage of for a minute. And once that mystique was gone, once you kind of let that air out of the balloon, and now you're just performing every week, I didn't see it in Punk. I just didn't see it in him as a character, I didn't see it in him in the ring –- he was good, but he wasn't phenomenal."

Bischoff, whose new book "Grateful" is out Friday, admitted that he could be wrong about a second Punk WWE run being a bad idea. But the former "Raw" General Manager went into a handful of reasons he doesn't think Punk would find success in returning to the company he walked out of in 2014.

"He's old, he's fragile, he was never in great shape to begin with, he didn't start out as an athlete, and now at [44] years old, he's fragile as hell," Bischoff said. "So what would you do [with him]? Especially in WWE, where the intensity, and the physicality, and the schedule is so much more than it is in AEW, just the sheer workload."

Bischoff believes that Punk "pretty much crapped the bed the way he handled himself" in AEW, referring to Punk's post-show media comments that allegedly instigated the backstage fight. Many fans have taken the side of Omega and the Young Bucks, and recent reports have suggested the number of wrestlers who support Punk backstage has dwindled, as well.

"I think the audience has kind of turned on him," Bischoff said. "I'm sure he still has some die-hard fans out there and all that, everybody does, but the general audience, I think he left a really bad taste in their mouth, and they realize that that mystique is no longer there, and he's just another guy. So I don't see the value. I can't imagine it."