Tony Khan: CM Punk Had Nothing To Do With Colt Cabana Moving To ROH

Tony Khan clarifies any misconceptions.

In March, Tony Khan announced he had purchased Ring of Honor. As part of his purchase, various AEW talents have been featured at ROH pay-per-views. Colt Cabana, who hadn’t wrestled on Dynamite or Rampage since November, returned to ROH for Supercard of Honor and was reportedly part of the ROH roster moving forward.

There were rumors and speculation that CM Punk had something to do with Cabana being moved to ROH.

Speaking to Blake Oestriecher of Forbes, Tony Khan addressed Cabana moving to ROH and if Punk had any influence on the decision.

“There is certainly a perception out there that I don’t think is accurate that when I purchased Ring of Honor and also [as] some of the contracts were coming up and I was starting to make moves—whether it was renewing them in most cases or not renewing them or in some cases reassigning people—there was a misconception that was perpetuated unfairly that CM Punk had anything to do with me wanting to move Colt Cabana to the Ring of Honor roster when his contract came up,” he said. “I will clarify that, just to take it head on, that he [Punk] had nothing to do with any of the contracts I picked up, whether I did or didn’t. But in particular, I did pick up Colt Cabana’s contract and gave him a similar contract to do different work. I don’t know if it was fair that that got perpetuated…I also didn’t think that was fair to Punk.”

Punk and Cabana had a falling out in 2018 with Cabana filing a lawsuit against Punk and Punk filing a countersuit.

Fightful Select published the following report on Cabana moving to ROH on July 6:

As far back as March, Fightful heard rumblings from AEW talent that there was a bit of an internal uproar over the idea that Colt Cabana was not set to be renewed by All Elite Wrestling. Many of the roster assumed initially this was due to the contentious relationship (or lack thereof) with CM Punk, however, in the months that followed, the lessened focus on Dark Order in general and AEW not coming to terms with Alan Angels and Stu Grayson, changed some of of those assumptions.

We’re told by numerous AEW talent that they caught wind several months ago that there was word that Colt Cabana’s deal with the company was not being renewed. Cabana is an extremely popular person backstage both from his work in AEW and outside, and we’ve heard that numerous talent voiced their displeasure and went to bat for Cabana. Since then, he’d ended up working the ROH Supercard event.

It is unknown if Cabana will return to AEW television. He did wrestle a handful of matches under the AEW banner at Gamescom in Germany.

As for Punk, he is set to headline AEW All Out when he challenges Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship. Fans can find the current lineup for AEW All Out by clicking here.