AEW and New Japan are hosting their first crossover event, Forbidden Door, on June 26 in CM Punk’s hometown of Chicago. One person on the New Japan roster who has been consistently calling out Punk for years is KENTA as they share the same finisher in the Go To Sleep (KENTA has claimed for over a decade that Punk stole the move). Punk spoke with ComicBook on a wide variety of topics in an interview on Wednesday morning, but when asked if he has any interest in the dream match with the Japanese star he simply said, “No.”
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KENTA took notice of the response on Twitter, writing, “Hahaha. Perfect answer. Zero interest and keep using MY finish. What a garbage.” The Bullet Club member briefly popped up on AEW programming last year to continue his feud with Jon Moxley over the IWGP United States Championship, which Moxley retained. KENTA eventually got his hands on the gold by beating Hiroshi Tanahashi at Power Struggle last November, only to drop the title right back to “The Ace” at Wrestle Kingdom 16 in January. The 41-year-old hasn’t wrestled since.
Meanwhile, Punk is set to challenge for the AEW World Championship at Double or Nothing on May 29 in Las Vegas. He also talked with ComicBook about how his first nine months in AEW have blown his expectations out of the water.
“This run has been more than what I expected. I had expectations,” Punk said. They were pretty high. So far, they’ve pretty much shattered all that, and that’s just based on analytics and numbers of how well we’re doing. I’ve long said that I’m there for the fans in the building. Nowadays everybody is still focused on ratings numbers when cable is absolutely — I canceled DirecTV months ago. I just, I couldn’t do it anymore. It’s too convoluted. It’s too expensive. Streaming services are, I feel like, are the future. So when people look at ratings and say that wrestling is dying, I say, ‘Well look at our buildings. We’re selling out and we’re doing our first million-dollar gate.’ So I don’t attribute that just to me. I attribute that to the spirit of AEW and everybody behind the scenes that makes it all work and makes it all click.
“But the run, my run specifically, my stuff as a whole, I’ve never been happier in a wrestling ring,” he added. “I’ve never, to me, been telling more fluid, better, reality-based stories. It’s been a real treat.”
