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>Steel, who was the only one fired after Brawl Out last year, was apparently one of Punk's requests or demands to return.
>Dave lays out a timeline of when he had heard about Steel's name coming up first. Based on Steel being in talks with Impact until several weeks ago, the Mike Johnson story about him, and the Nick Hausman story about him returning several months ago, him being brought back 6-7 weeks ago would fit the time table.
>Dave says people at the top in AEW repeatedly denied that he was hired, and people close to Steel said it was a closely kept secret and that he would return at the first Collision show. Key talent had no idea he was hired until this week and were shocked to find out about it.
>The story is that apparently Tony Khan told CM Punk that Steel could have his job back and work closely with Punk, but he would have to work remotely and he could not come to the Collision tapings. Everything fell apart at that point.
>On 5/16, after graphics and everything had been made to push Punk as the star of the Collision show the next morning, WBD was told to scrub him from everything, which they did. Dave says while the Collision show was not completely incumbent upon Punk's return, WBD had pushed very hard for Punk to be brought back based on his prior successes in AEW.
>Dave says multiple people in AEW have now confirmed that this is what happened.
>Dave lays out a timeline of when he had heard about Steel's name coming up first. Based on Steel being in talks with Impact until several weeks ago, the Mike Johnson story about him, and the Nick Hausman story about him returning several months ago, him being brought back 6-7 weeks ago would fit the time table.
>Dave says people at the top in AEW repeatedly denied that he was hired, and people close to Steel said it was a closely kept secret and that he would return at the first Collision show. Key talent had no idea he was hired until this week and were shocked to find out about it.
>The story is that apparently Tony Khan told CM Punk that Steel could have his job back and work closely with Punk, but he would have to work remotely and he could not come to the Collision tapings. Everything fell apart at that point.
>On 5/16, after graphics and everything had been made to push Punk as the star of the Collision show the next morning, WBD was told to scrub him from everything, which they did. Dave says while the Collision show was not completely incumbent upon Punk's return, WBD had pushed very hard for Punk to be brought back based on his prior successes in AEW.
>Dave says multiple people in AEW have now confirmed that this is what happened.
