CM Punk made a rare live appearance on Saturday when he spoke for more than 90-minutes in an interview panel at the Starrcast III wrestling fan convention. Late in the interview he briefly spoke about the future of pro wrestling with the Wednesday Night Wars, which will see NXT (on USA) and AEW (on TNT) air their two-hour live wrestling shows at the same time each week starting on Oct. 2.
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Punk, like many wrestlers on both sides, doesn’t see it so much as a war because he thinks fans should be encouraged to watch both instead of choose a side. He brought up the topic while speaking about his love for comics, saying that when he grew up their was an “us vs. them” mentality with Marvel and DC.
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Punk said. “I’m here to tell you, we need to realize that it’s all there for us and we should enjoy all of it. Like right now I see a lot of AEW hats, but realize you can watch all of the s— that’s out there. Don’t let either company trick you into thinking it’s an us vs. them thing, just enjoy the wrestling. Whether its WWE or AEW or NXT, you guys don’t have to choose, you can f— watch it all, and it’s rad.”
Punk brought it again up later, saying that “it’s a plus for everyone” that the two shows are going on at the same time on major cable networks.
“Let them pretend like there’s some sort of war going on,” Punk said. “You guys just get to reap the benefits. I think that’s great.”
Numerous wrestlers have spoken out about the coming conflict, including “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.
“I’ll tell you who’s going to win this fight is the fans because you’re getting head to head competition,” Austin said in a recent interview with ComicBook.com. “WWE is WWE. AEW is AEW. It will be a little bit different type of action and I’ll tune in or flip back and forth or watch one and DVR the other. But I think just wrestling in general wins because back when we had the wars and there was 10 million viewers every single night. And now it’s turned into what give or take 3 million on Monday [and] Tuesday. Maybe that’s high, but maybe it’ll reignite people’s passion for wrestling and head to head competition is always good and I think you’ll see more intensity, and I think it’s good and I’m looking forward to it.”
