Dave Meltzer Claims AEW's Relationship With ESPN Soured Due To CM Punk Interview

In light of the new WWE deal with ESPN, Dave Meltzer says the sports platform removed AEW from its website. In the latest edition of the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter," Meltzer says ESPN's issues with AEW predate the WWE deal and have to do with CM Punk's 2023 interview.

"This is embarrassing for the company," the report stated. "AEW hurt themselves with ESPN in 2023 due to the C.M. Punk interview where he said stuff highly negative about Adam Page and the belief was that AEW leaked the contents of the interview to its wrestlers and it ended up on a wrestling website or sites before it was even published by ESPN." Meltzer added that ESPN "wanted nothing to do with AEW" for a time but that shows like All In at Wembley Stadium made the promotion too big to ignore.

"They've never done something as brazen with such obvious timing. This is an ESPN decision, not a WWE decision," the report further clarified, before noting that WWE wouldn't take the risk because of their anti-trust case. "And their opponents do have the money to do that (MLW already got a $20 million settlement with WWE and WWE didn't do one-fiftieth in that direction to MLW). But that's a different deal."