How Jack Perry Really Feels About CM Punk Backstage Fight
Jack Perry has reflected on his infamous backstage altercation with CM Punk that led to Punk’s firing from AEW.
CM Punk’s snakebit tenure in AEW came crashing to an end after he was involved in a physical confrontation with Jack Perry backstage at All In 2023.
Punk had already been involved in one backstage fight with The Elite in 2022 before he returned on-screen to the company in the summer of 2023 to front the new Collision show. Punk ruled the roost on Collision and went as far as banning AEW’s Head of Talent Relations from attending the show.
Punk was reportedly unhappy with Jack Perry for wanting to use real glass during a spot on the show, thinking Perry was trying to write himself off TV for a holiday. During Perry’s match with HOOK at All In, a car windshield was destroyed, prompting Perry to get up close to the camera and utter the immortal line, “Real glass, cry me a river”, setting off a chain of events that led to CM Punk being the WWE World Heavyweight Champion in 2025.
Jack Perry Has Grown From CM Punk Fight
Speaking on Close Up with Renee Paquette, Jack Perry reflected on that unfortunate incident that also led to a long AEW hiatus for him without referring to it directly or mentioning CM Punk by name:
I feel like I’ve grown a lot from it, but I feel like the growth came from a lot of it sounds dramatic to say pain, but it wasn’t the nicest of times, for most of that time. I think it really freed me in a lot of ways. It’s kind of like before all that feels like another lifetime at this point, and I think back to how I felt before that, and I think a big thing I had was like, I just really, it sounds silly, I just wanted everyone to like me.
I was new to being on TV. This was my dream job since I was a little kid, and I wanted to do it perfectly, and I wanted everyone to like me, and it’s not something I worry about so much in my real life, but this was different. I kind of wanted to micromanage it and make it perfect.
So then when I would come up short of that, it was very disappointing, and I think coming up short of anything sucks, but doing it in such a public way, and then there are a million people telling you you’re a piece of shit or whatever, it’s hard.