AEW's Dax Harwood Talks Backlash to His Positive CM Punk Comments

By Connor Casey

Dax Harwood spoke incredibly highly of CM Punk during the debut episode of his FTR podcast a few weeks back. His extensive comments about Punk's behavior backstage and his doubts about the public facts surrounding the "Brawl Out" incident. He closed things out with a plea for Punk to eventually return to AEW programming, saying, "This is my plea to all four guys (Punk, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega). Please find a way to make it work. If we can make it work, we can set up the future of professional wrestling for a long time and we can change the course of professional wrestling for a very long time. When you think about it, unselfishly, we're doing this for 20-30 years down the road so guys and girls can make a living."

The episode caused quite a stir within AEW, to the point where Harwood addressed it on this week's episode. He said, "Everybody's tweeting me and texting me and that's all I read. Yeah, apparently some people in the AEW lock room were unhappy with my podcast, and that's okay if they were. But to me, it's funny that, you know, I talked to you, I told you even before this stuff got out, I told you I had at the very least 20 text messages from the guys and girls that I work with who told me how much they love the podcast and how much they enjoyed my thoughts and feelings and how I expressed wrestling. They also enjoy the fact that I didn't play either side and that I just told the truth."

"So for some of the people that are upset with me, I wonder why they're upset because all I did was paint a company that I'm in love with, or that I believe in, in a positive light," he continued (h/t WrestlingNews.co). "All I did was paint a few people that were in the news in a positive light. Because at the core, I believe that they all are good people. But I guess some people weren't happy that I was maybe expressing the true human being that CM Punk is, or maybe they were unhappy that I was expressing the true human beings that The Young Bucks or Kenny or whoever was. Maybe that's it too."

Harwood also confirmed that he and Cash Wheeler have requested time off from AEW programming. Their contracts with the promotion are set to expire in April.

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