The first episode of Dynamite was two years ago. You cannot compare a two year old rating and say that Punk didn't draw because of that. The fact is that, as I put in an earlier post, Punk's appearances drew bigger ratings than before he debuted. You have to compare it to last week's rating, not a rating two years ago.
It doesn't matter if Dynamite can't beat Raw yet. They are still a new company. But they have grown faster than any company in wrestling history. The ratings they have gotten have been fantastic and WWE should be worried.
Espacially when you look at the downward trajectory of WWEs ratings and interested (as demonstraighted in that graph above) Meanwhile we dont even have Daniel Bryan yet, or Adam Cole, or Bray Wyatt. And if AEW does get all 3 of them to go along with Cm Punk, it will be huge for them in the long term.
And the long term growth of the company is far more important then short term growth, even if Punk being there doesnt keep the ratings this high for long, he still presents long term value for the company as a whole, same with all those other names. They all are long term investments.
Meanwhile WWE is killing their own company, granted they have so much money they will be here for many years to come even if their ratings fall off a cliff, but still they are in trouble if they dont have the foresight to see where things are headed if they stay on this path.