Backstage News On CM Punk Attending NJPW Battle In The Valley To Support Mercedes Mone

Last month CM Punk attended NJPW Battle in the Valley to see Mercedes Mone (former WWE superstar Sasha Banks) battle KAIRI for the IWGP Women's Championship. Now, Fightful Select has learned that according to some within NJPW, they were not aware that "The Best in the World" was going to be present that evening. While the report states they would've welcomed him anyway, those in New Japan didn't want AEW, a partner of theirs, to think they were plotting against them.

In fact, only three other people knew that Punk would even be in attendance, to begin with. Fightful reports that those three people were Lars Frederiksen, who he attended with, as well as his close friend Lou D'Angeli (formerly ECW's Lou E. Dangerously and currently Anthem's Vice President of Marketing), and commentator Rob Naylor.

Additionally, Fightful learned that Frederiksen had asked Rocky Romero, who is currently signed to NJPW, back in January if he and a friend could attend Battle in the Valley. Ultimately, this was all set up without NJPW having any knowledge that it was going to be Punk. Again, though, this didn't cause any problems between promotions, and Fightful was told that he was there to support Mone, who was making her NJPW in-ring debut.

This week, Punk headlines with a since-deleted Instagram post that saw him criticize some of his colleagues and journalist Dave Meltzer, casting further doubt over his AEW and professional wrestling future. He hasn't appeared for the promotion since defeating Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship at All Out last September.