Wrestling League Bought ‘Entire Country’s Supply’ of Ringer T-shirts for Star's Return

By Brendan Menapace

When pro wrestler CM Punk made his return to the ring last week as part of All Elite Wrestling, the organization was ready for the occasion with T-shirts. Or so it thought.

Fan reception was so strong that AEW had to start printing Punk’s iconic ringer tee on any T-shirt they could find.

According to Sportskeeda, the Pro Wrestling Tees/Shop AEW website crashed for nearly a whole day due to demand for CM Punk’s first T-shirt with AEW. Even with those outages, CM Punk broke AEW T-shirt sales records for a 24-hour span, and Pro Wrestling Tees ran out of the ringer style T-shirt that the design was originally printed on.

.@CMPunk makes his debut on @AEW Dynamite tonight.

Gonna be electric.#SummerOfPunk pic.twitter.com/DFgWruk5r7

— B/R Wrestling (@BRWrestling) August 25, 2021

“Due to supply shortages on ringer T-shirts (white tee with black cuffs and neck), we do not have enough ringers in stock,” the site said. “Rather than completely putting the product out of stock, we are now offering it to you on a white T-shirt in many different styles. We will continue to monitor ringer stock and offer the ringer version at a future undetermined date. Ringer tees will still be available at AEW live events while supply lasts.”

Best…in…the…world@CMPunk @AEW pic.twitter.com/BqGZJkzHWs

— Pro Wrestling Tees (@PWTees) August 22, 2021

AEW president Tony Khan knew there would be demand, and said that the company is still working to keep up with orders however they can.

“I wasn’t surprised by how many shirts we sold,” Khan said according to CBR. “I had said it needs to be all hands on deck printing shirts, and they printed, I think, as many as they could as quickly as they could, and we will continue putting lots of merchandise out to make sure everybody can get their CM Punk merchandise.”

Khan also said that AEW “bought out the entire country’s supply of [ringer tees],” which might be hyperbole, but underscores how the company anticipated the demand and still couldn’t keep up.

Two things will happen from this: People will keep buying the design printed on other shirts because they’re excited about a wrestling star’s return, and the people who get the ringer tee will have an exclusive product that they can eventually sell for a huge markup on eBay.