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AEW Star “Hand Chosen” To Feud With CM Punk After All Out

CM Punk

An AEW star has claimed that they were “hand chosen” to CM Punk’s antagonist following All Out before Punk was suspended by the company.

CM Punk has not been seen in AEW since being suspended for his part in the alleged backstage fight that took place at All Out. Punk was stripped of his AEW World Championship and is also recovering from a serious injury suffered in his main event match against Jon Moxley on the show. Now it appears, there were plans in place for Punk following All Out featuring more people than you might expect.

Speaking to AEW broadcaster Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Stokely Hathaway noted that he was to lead The Firm in a feud with CM Punk and had been hand-picked to do so:

“That [was] one thing I was looking forward to because I was hand chosen for that role. I’m just going to say it, I don’t know the specifics, if people are choosing sides or whatever, but for me, the fact that CM Punk said, ‘Hey, I want to work with this guy,’ it holds a lot of weight and means a lot, regardless of what has happened, what will happen.”

“When that didn’t happen anymore, it was literally re-writing everything on the fly. Everyone in the group is trying to do their best and we’re trying to figure out how to make this work because the original purpose isn’t the purpose anymore, so it’s like, what do you do? Things are slowly gearing up, it’s just going to take a few weeks.”

“With the way wrestling is nowadays, I get it, first impressions are everything, but it’s a little difficult to change people’s minds. Most people don’t want to see Picasso work on his painting, they just want to see shit done. That’s the phase we’re in, we’re working on it, but people don’t want to see it worked on, they want to see the finished product.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Stokely Hathaway appeared to indicate that CM Punk was no longer part of AEW.

h/t Fightful