Punk only caved on the return of Ace Steel to work, in person thing, because Ace gave permission for him to do so. Punk was willing to fight to the bitter end, but Ace basically told him that the Bucks/Omega would win if Punk stood by his principals and his friend. So Punk agreed to back off on that.

Punk also only agreed to an NDA clause that would have an out that allowed him to speak out if the Bucks, Omega, etc continued to leak shit to the dirt sheets. Tony basically told his legal team, who were against it, to go ahead and put the clause into it after Punk apologized and blamed the fact that the Elite had been fucking him over via Alvarez/Meltzer spreading lies and a sense that no matter how hard Punk tried to ignore it, they kept doing it.