Shortly after CM Punk debuted with AEW, reports surfaced that executives at Fox were upset that WWE didn’t make a strong enough offer to him. According to a recent report from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Fox pressed WWE to make an offer to Punk when rumors of him going to AEW began to surface. They even offered to help financially with a contract offer to him.

“WWE supposedly responded saying that the money figure he wanted was too high. FOX was so interested in him returning to WWE and not AEW, they reportedly responded by wanting to help out,” wrote Dave Meltzer. “But WWE officials then said there were other reasons they didn’t want him, the attitude issues and such.”

Punk spoke with ESPN recently and said that WWE did reach out to him last December through intermediaries. He indicated that the talks didn’t get far, however, and said that WWE “played games” when reaching out.

A previous report stated that WWE felt pressure to bring back Brock Lesnar and Becky Lynch to Smackdown due to Punk’s debut in AEW. This was covered in a previous edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

“FOX was very upset that WWE didn’t make a big offer to Punk to keep him from going to AEW,” wrote Dave Meltzer. “Politically, WWE felt the need to get Lesnar and Lynch to Smackdown right away.”