WWE: Backstage Update on CM Punk’s Undisputed WWE Title Win at 7/6 WWE RAW Show, Brock Lesnar Appearance Set for July 27 WWE RAW Show, New RKO Trademark

Backstage Update on CM Punk’s Undisputed WWE Title Win at 7/6 WWE RAW Show

As noted before, this past Monday’s WWE RAW show in Rosemont, Illinois also featured CM Punk making a surprise return and defeating Sami Zayn to become the new Undisputed WWE Champion.

Sean Ross Sapp reported in a recent episode of Fightful’s Post-RAW podcast that his sources stated that WWE’s plan for some time was always for Zayn to drop the title to CM Punk.

Sapp reported that WWE officials always knew this would happen for the outcome because they have known when Punk was going to come back from his abscense for a while.

False Finish reported that their sources also confirmed that Punk winning the title and heading into this August’s SummerSlam 2026 to defend it was something that has been planned by WWE officials for well over a month.

It was reported that WWE officials originally planned for Punk to challenge Cody Rhodes for the title at WrestleMania 43 in Saudi Arabia but made the decision to have this match take place at SummerSlam due to their current plans to make next month’s event in Minneapolis to be better than WrestleMania 42 was.

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Brock Lesnar Appearance Announced for July 27 WWE RAW Show

The Intuit Dome recently announced that Brock Lesnar will be making an appearance at the July 27th WWE RAW show at their venue in Inglewood, California.

JUST ANNOUNCED! Brock Lesnar returns to WWE RAW! Grab your tix now and meet us here July 27th 💥: https://t.co/HkoriD7u4W pic.twitter.com/o4NR7wGMTW

— Intuit Dome (@IntuitDome) July 7, 2026

Lesnar is currently scheduled to be making an appearance at next week’s WWE RAW show on July 13 in Dallas, Texas.

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WWE Files New RKO Trademark

WWE filed a new trademark for “RKO” on July 6 for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

This is the name of the finisher used by Randy Orton.

In an interesting note, the Wrestling Observer’s Joseph Currier reported that WWE has been in a dispute over their attempts to trademark this term for “goods and services” since 2024 due to issues over the USPTO ruling that an earlier trademark filing was “confusingly similar” to trademarks currently owned by production company RKO Pictures.

Portion of trademark filing:

Wrestling exhibitions and performances by a professional wrestler and entertainer rendered through broadcast media including television and radio, and via the internet or commercial online service; providing wrestling news and information via a global computer network.