AEW Star Reveals How Match With CM Punk Came About

By Liam Crowley

CM Punk's AEW future may be in doubt, but his first year in the company was stacked full of memorable matches. Beyond his pay-per-view clashes with Darby Allin and MJF, Punk put on AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage clinics against the likes of Daniel Garcia, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Dustin Rhodes. One of Punk's most acclaimed AEW singles bouts came against tag specialist Dax Harwood, who did battle with his fellow Bret Hart appreciator on the March 23rd edition of AEW Dynamite in Cedar Park, Texas. This wasn't the first time Punk and Harwood shared the ring, as they faced off in trios action before, and it wouldn't be the last, as they teamed together in Punk's first match as AEW World Champion.

Speaking on his podcast, Harwood revealed that his singles match with the Second City Saint was something that Punk pitched himself.

"I got off the plane, took an Uber to Starbucks, brought my bags and my luggage in with me and ordered my coffee," Harwood said. "And I was waiting for my order and CM Punk walked in. We started talking and he goes, 'What are you doing tonight?' I said, 'Man, I have no idea. I don't know.' He said, 'I don't think I'm doing anything either. You want to wrestle tonight?' We had joked about it before. Yeah, we want to do this. So it's like, 'Of course, dude, but don't tease me.'"

After discussing the match in the coffee shop, Punk made it official later that night.

"We sat and we had coffee and we've thrown around the idea of working together and just talked about whatever," Harwood continued. "I get a text later that night that said, 'We're first tonight. I hope you're ready because I'm ready and I'm very excited.' From right then I was ready to go."

The two fought on that AEW Dynamite in a back-and-forth affair, with Harwood gaining momentum late in the contest. After doing battle for over 12 minutes, Punk locked Harwood in his submission finisher, the Anaconda Vice.

"I knew the finish of the match that I wanted. I knew I wanted to tap out to the Anaconda Vice," Harwood said. "Because I knew after I tapped out, I was going to sit on my a-- and look up and shake my head, because everyone's done that in life. When they've failed and sat there and said, 'Man. I worked so hard and I still failed. That's not fair.' Because it's not fair. When you work hard in life but you still fail, it's not fair, but it happens to all of us. And you know what we do? We get back up and we f--king keep going."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit the original source with an h/t to ComicBook for the transcription.

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