Last night, WWE held their annual Boxing Day live event at Madison Square Garden in New York. The event most notably featured the in-ring return of CM Punk who competed inside a WWE ring for the first time since the 2014 Royal Rumble almost a decade ago. Punk emerged victorious over Dominik Mysterio inside the world’s most famous arena and afterwards, reiterated his plan to win the Men’s Royal Rumble next month and go on to headline WrestleMania for the very first time.
However, it appears not everything regarding the match went entirely according to plan. In the lead-up to the event, Ibou of WrestlePurists hinted on X that Punk would be wearing trunks as his ring gear for the match as opposed to “the long bois”, the term Punk himself came up with for his divisive longer tights which he occasionally donned during his time in AEW. However, Ibou later reported that the trunks Punk had ordered specially for the Madison Square Garden event did not fit him and as a result, he was forced to wear generic black replacement trunks instead.
Thankfully, the match itself went off without a hitch with Punk even paying tribute to his debut match in AEW midway through. At one point, Mysterio attempted to go for a frog splash on Punk who was lying prone. When Mysterio jumped, however, Punk quickly sat up, causing Dominik to crash torso first onto the ring canvas as Punk laughed heartily. Comparisons were quickly drawn by fans to a spot from Punk’s match with Darby Allin at AEW All Out 2021 where Darby attempted the Coffin Drop only to miss when Punk sat up and proceeded to laugh at himself.
Punk is expected to make his televised in-ring return at the Royal Rumble Premium Live Event next month where he will compete in the men’s version of the show’s namesake match. At the time of writing, 2023 Men’s Royal Rumble winner Cody Rhodes is the only other entrant confirmed for that match.