Following CM Punk’s bombshell comments about AEW during Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour show this week, it appears as though AEW is firing back.
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In the interview, Punk told his side of the story, explaining how the “real glass” comment during the pre-show made him feel really disrespected. According to Punk, he was approached by Tony Schiavone about helping with a situation prior to that match taking place last August. Jack Perry and HOOK were throwing out ideas for their match and Perry suggested a car spot with real glass that would shatter when hit with a pipe. After multiple officials within AEW told him that it wasn’t a good idea, he refused to let it go. Punk then got involved and told him much of the same, noting that it was a rental car and he was looking at the perspective of what that could do to the entire professional wrestling industry given they constantly rent cars to wrestlers on the road. The exchange happened on AEW Collision where Punk had a ton of sway since it was built around him.
“… And I was just like it’s a rental car. And I very politely, because I like Jack, I was just like, ‘docs told you no, Daryl’s told you no, Mike’s told you no, Schiavone’s told you no and now I’m telling you no. And apparently you’ve cussed them all out so I’m telling you, we don’t do that here. If you want to do this, go to Wednesday and do it.’ And he had no problem and said, ‘ok, I just thought it was really cool idea.’ And I said, ‘well it might be but it’s a rental car, boys ruin it for the boys. You’re gonna smash the window on a rental car and then you’re gonna return it with no f—king window and now national budget, Hertz, whatever, is gonna be like, ‘don’t rent cars to pro wrestlers anymore.’ So I wasn’t trying to hold my weight around like ‘this is my show and you gotta get out of here.’ I was just like this is f—king dumb man, he wanted to do it so he didn’t have to fly back to Canada.”
During this week’s AEW Collision, a graphic promoting AEW Dynamite next week revealed that the Young Bucks would present backstage footage from AEW All In, the place Jack Perry and Punk altercation. When speaking with AEW talent, Fightful Select is reporting that while some fans think it’s trolling or bait to gain viewership, those within the company claim it to be genuine as they would not falsely promote something. The report also noted that in terms of legality there seems to be no issues. Ahead of the footage being released, the Young Bucks shared a simple tweet that reads, “Roll. The. Tape.”
The Young Bucks are set to face FTR at the inaugural AEW Dynasty pay-per-view for the vacant AEW World Tag Team Championships. The titles were previously held by Sting and Darby Allin but when Sting retired with the championship following his final AEW match before retirement, a tournament was held to eventually crown the new champions. It’s no secret that FTR are very close to Punk, a veteran in the locker room told Fightful that Khan respects them a lot so they’d be surprised if they didn’t get a heads up on the situation.
