Cody Rhodes Says He Hated Seeing CM Punk’s Brawl Out Drama Unfold in AEW

Cody Rhodes revealed that he hated seeing CM Punk’s rant during the All Out 2022 scrum and the rest of the “Brawl Out” drama that unfolded at All Elite Wrestling in a new interview! It’s become one of the most infamous wrestling stories of the last year as former AEW Champion CM Punk caused quite the fray when he revealed some intense statements following the All Out pay-per-view event, and what followed was reportedly a much larger fight. Rhodes, who left the company long before all of this went down, recently revealed his reaction to everything that unfolded. 

Speaking about the fallout with CM Punk during a recent edition of Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, Rhodes explained that he hated seeing it happen and felt “bummed” about the result, “If you remember when [CM Punk] came back, everyone was fired up about that, everybody. So when I watched it, just from my sitting there, I was not…there were some people texting me. I remember somebody texting me, ‘Man, you’re the smartest guy in the room.’ And I wanted to write back, ‘F-U man.’ I don’t feel that way.”

How Does Cody Rhodes Feel About Brawl Out?

Elaborating further, Rhodes continued to explain that he felt the promotion was damaged as a whole, “I feel this thing we built got damaged, and I’m not putting any blame on anybody…But I just hated seeing that. Because as the company grows, and I hope it continues to grow, I hope people remember the mission in the first place. Why we were there. And if you bring in people who don’t know the mission then things like that can happen.”

But noting that he felt no direct heat with Punk, Rhodes continued, “I’m not saying he didn’t know the mission, or anything of that nature, but I was just bummed out. That’s how I felt. I was bummed out because you win the title, that’s a feather in your cap. You win the Royal Rumble, it’s a feather in your cap. Building an alternative wrestling promotion is definitely a feather in the cap. I don’t want that to be erased. I don’t want that to go away.”

Closing out, Rhodes reiterated that he was mostly “bummed” because of those in the rest of the company caught in the crossfire, “Plus, there’s not as many jobs in wrestling as people maybe think. There’s about a thousand people who work there. Structurally, infrastructure and talent, I’m proud of them. And I want to make sure they’re able to feed their families. And that was a situation that was so big and heavy, I don’t think it was helpful…Maybe you can make it helpful, maybe you can do something with it? That’s just how I felt. No heat on Punk, no heat on Matt, Nick, and Kenny, or Tony, I was just bummed out when I saw it. That’s not how we envisioned it…It was just a bummer.”

Cody Rhodes is currently slated to challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship at WrestleMania 39.