CM Punk is being pushed hard for a return on the July 6 episode of RAW in Chicago, even though the plan right now points to SmackDown. After months away from WWE televised programming, the timing has put him back at the center of the brand discussion.
The reason the date matters is simple: July 6 is the show where WWE is already asking readers to watch for him, and Chicago is the city that gives the return its edge. Punk has appeared only once on television since his grueling main event match with Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 42, a brief promo on RAW After WrestleMania, and that has kept every rumor around his next step alive.
Dave Meltzer said Punk was pushing very hard for the July 6 RAW show because it is in his native Chicago, while also noting that Punk is earmarked for SmackDown. In Meltzer’s account, the move away from RAW was never meant to be permanent; it was part of getting him ready for SmackDown and, eventually, a program with Rhodes. That makes the current push more than a simple hometown moment. It is part of a larger reset for one of WWE’s biggest names.
The friction is that the company appears to be steering in two directions at once. Meltzer said the plan right now is for Punk to return on SmackDown, and he also said WWE had no creative for him when he was taken off television. That leaves July 6 as a possibility, not a certainty, even as the Chicago setting makes the RAW episode the loudest place to stage a comeback. During that same show, Rhodes is slated for a WWE Championship match against Sami Zayn, which only raises the stakes around how WWE wants to use both men.
There is also a wider brand picture behind the noise. Meltzer described RAW as loaded with Reigns, Seth Rollins, The Usos, Fatu, Oba Femi, Logan Paul and Breakker, while SmackDown was framed around Rhodes, Gunther, Ripley and Punk, along with Orton and McIntyre. That is why the cleaner answer is the one WWE seems closest to now: Punk may be pushed for a July 6 return in Chicago, but the planned landing spot remains SmackDown, with Rhodes waiting down the line if WWE sticks to the road map.
