More on AEW’s Plans for CM Punk Return Date & Update on New Third Weekly TV Show

As noted before, AEW is currently planning for CM Punk to make his official return to the company at their Forbidden Door 2 go-home Dynamite show this June in Chicago, Illinois. AEW is also currently planning for their upcoming third weekly television show to feature a “soft” roster split related to Punk’s return to the company.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that AEW CEO Tony Khan is currently expected to give one to two new major announcements soon related to Punk’s upcoming return and this new television show.

In regards to Punk, Meltzer reported that the backstage locker room situation over the issues involving Punk have yet to be fully resolved as of Thursday.

Meltzer reported that AEW officials currently have the working idea for this upcoming new weekly television show to feature Punk as its main star and to split up their roster for this new show. Meltzer reported that the main idea would be to help ease the backstage locker room situation involving those who have issues with others and have not made up by keeping them on separate rosters for AEW shows for the time being. Meltzer reported that this would not mean that there would be roster specific pay-per-view events similar to WWE’s past brand exclusive events and there would still be situations with some television shows needing to be “all hands on deck” for talent.

In regards to the upcoming new television show, Meltzer reported that it likely will be having a start time of around 7:30PM or 8PM EST based on AEW’s current taping schedule for their July 8th “television taping” in Regina, Canada. Meltzer also reported that it is currently not known if this new show will be airing on TBS or TNT but a TBS home would mean fewer sports-related preemptions. Meltzer also reported that despite which network is chosen, this upcoming Saturday show would still be dealing with major sports-related competition such as UFC and boxing, college football in the fall, all of the major sports at certain points in the year, and WWE pay-per-view events in Saturdays.

Meltzer also reported that the original plan for this upcoming new show was for it to be a weekly two hour show and would have equal the star power of AEW’s weekly Dynamite shows on Wednesdays.

Meltzer reported that while there has been some talks regarding a potential June starting date, AEW currently does not have any television tapings dates on Saturdays announced as of yet for that month. While AEW currently has plans for this new show to debut by July 8th, Meltzer speculated that Regina, Canada probably would not be the actual debut location for this new show.