CM Punk Addresses What Led to Jack Perry Controversy In AEW
CM Punk has given his side of what went wrong with AEW’s Jack Perry, which is ultimately what led to Punk getting fired from AEW.
At AEW All In London 2023, CM Punk defeated Samoa Joe in the opening match on the pay-per-view. In the pre-show match, “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry lost a match to Hook. When Perry went backstage, he got in Punk’s face backstage, they argued and got into a fight that led to other people separating them.
During the chaos, there was also some backstage incident that led to AEW boss Tony Khan saying his life was in danger due to what CM Punk did during the altercation and allegedly Punk confronting Khan as well.
The issues between Jack Perry and CM Punk started months earlier when Perry wanted to use real glass during a spot, but Punk was among the people to tell Perry not to use real glass. It was a safety issue, yet Perry didn’t like being told what to do.
While appearing on the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, CM Punk did his best to explain what went wrong with Perry.
“This is one of those things like, there’s all these rumours about NDAs. There’s a big difference between not being allowed to talk about shit, and not wanting to talk about shit. I don’t particularly want to literate this again.”
“Tony’s big idea was seperate show, we’re going to separate everybody. I said that would never work, just let me go, who cares, it’s best. These guys don’t want me here, this isn’t a real business, this isn’t a business predicated on making money, drawing money, selling tickets. It’s not what it was sold to me as, let me go.”
“The second day we had this show, I’m sitting in catering and Tony Schiavone comes to get me, he says ‘Jack is cussing me out, he cussed out Mike Mansury and he’s cussing out the doctor right now’.I was told people were being separated so there’s not problems, so you don’t want me in this. You all need to handle this, because if you don’t, I’m going to handle this, and you’re not going to like how I am gonna handle this.”
“I don’t know anything about Jack being on vacation, but there are people that work one day a week and don’t want to, they want to show up, wrestle and film vignettes and sit at home for weeks, do what you want, it’s not my company, but not on my show.”
“What Jack wanted to do was he wanted to smash the window of a rental car with a pipe, I was like ‘doc’s told you no, Darrel’s told you no, Mike’s told you no, Schiavone’s told you no, and apparently you’ve cussed them out, so I’m telling you no, we don’t do that here, if you wanna do that, go to Wednesday and do it.”
“To come to this show and everyone’s supposed to be separated to get rid of all the drama, and you’re swearing at the doctor because it’s real glass, it’s gonna get in your eye, there’s a safe way to do that, and I politely said that to him, I said this is a different show, if you want to do that, go to Wednesday.”
CM Punk Says Jack Perry Took Business Stuff Personally
While closing on the topic of Jack Perry, Punk seemingly took a shot at The Elite’s Young Bucks & Kenny Omega while referencing them as friends of Jack Perry.
“He clearly took something very business minded very personally, which is fine, because I’ve done that before too, and it’s very much who he’s friends with and s**t never got squashed, nobody’s in charge, and it turned into what it turned into.”
CM Punk is now back in WWE and dealing with a torn right triceps injury that will see him miss WrestleMania 40 as a wrestler, but he will be there on commentary duty.