CM Punk Responds to AEW Collision Going Head-to-Head With WWE SummerSlam

Professional wrestling is back on Saturdays. All Elite Wrestling launched their third weekly broadcast this past June, AEW Collision, and has regularly run the new two-hour primetime Saturday show unopposed for its first seven weeks. While WWE Money in the Bank streamed on the same day as one of AEW Collision's live broadcasts, the London-based premium live event ran in the early afternoon due to the time difference. With WWE putting more of an emphasis on Saturdays for its premium live events, the global leader in sports-entertainment was bound to go head-to-head with AEW Collision eventually, and that is coming to fruition this Saturday.

WWE SummerSlam streams live on Peacock from 7:30 PM ET until close to 11 PM ET, meaning that it will completely engulf the 8-10 PM ET AEW Collision on TNT. When asked about this first-time overlap, AEW Collision flag-bearer CM Punk noted that he does not see the simultaneous broadcasts as competing with one another.

"We are not competing with SummerSlam," Punk told SI. "We are going to go up against college football soon. We have already been up against monster UFC cards every single Saturday. We are not competing with them. We are competing with what we did last Saturday. I am competing with who I was yesterday as a human being and a pro wrestler, and we, as the Collision team, are competing with what we did last Saturday. That's always going to be what we are striving to do, and I think that's an important message for the fans to understand."

Punk admitted that AEW Collision has an uphill battle every week when it comes to ratings but sees the show as having an advantage when it pertains to ticket sales.

"Collision is on a bad night for television, but the trade off is that I think it's a lot easier to sell a ticket to a Saturday night show than it is on a Wednesday or Monday or Friday," Punk continued. "I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, but we absolutely love the challenge. I think we've outdone ourselves so far."

Punk defends the "real" world championship against Ricky Starks this Saturday on AEW Collision while WWE SummerSlam will be headlined by Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns putting his title on the line against Jey Uso.