Leading into WWE’s Survivor Series Premium Live Event (formerly pay-per-view), there was plenty of speculation regarding whether CM Punk would make his return to the company in his hometown of Chicago.
And Forbes was prepared.
The only problem? The outlet published an article detailing how Punk didn’t return to WWE despite the fact that moments earlier, Punk had returned to WWE. As of Sunday morning, an article written by Alfred Konuwa titled “WWE Survivor Series 2023 Results: CM Punk Absent Amid Return Rumors” is still inexplicably active on the Forbes website, while a post on X (formerly Twitter) promoting the story also remains up.
https://twitter.com/ForbesSports/status/1728623388942344555
“CM Punk did not return to WWE at Survivor Series despite ubiquitous speculation during the buildup,” reads the first sentence of the article, which goes on to detail the speculation surrounding Punk’s potential return before concluding, “Punk has been a trending topic on Twitter all week, and regardless of CM Punk’s absence, WWE has all the evidence they need to suggest Punk remains a star to a large segment of its audience. The CM Punk rumor mill will only continue to grow headed into Royal Rumble.”
According to the website, the article was published at 10:52 ET, while the social media post was sent three minutes later — both of which came minutes after Punk made his return following the Survivor Series main event. It’s unclear whether the inaccurate post was scheduled to be published and never adjusted, or prematurely published after WWE teased its show going off the air prior to Punk’s return.
While much has been made of Forbes’ publishing practices, one would imagine that the outlet would at least have guardrails in place to prevent such articles from being published. Only adding to the strangeness of this situation is that Forbes has since published an accurate version of the same article, but has yet to correct, clarify, or delete the original one.
Konuwa, who has regularly broken ratings news regarding professional wrestling, has yet to address the matter on his personal X account. He has, however, made and reposted several posts trolling Punk’s former employer, AEW, for “The Best in the World’s” return to WWE.
Survivor Series is trending to be the most watched Survivor Series of all time. I can only imagine what that means for Tony Khan's attempt to counter-program with #AEWCollision lol #CMPunk #SurvivorSeries pic.twitter.com/212Q3AluNo
— Alfred Konuwa (@ThisIsNasty) November 26, 2023
[Forbes]
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.