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Samoa Joe Admits AEW All In Fight Was A High-Stress Situation

By Craig Ballantyne • Published 17th January 2024
Samoa Joe AEW All In entrance

Samoa Joe has had his say about the backstage fight between CM Punk and Jack Perry at AEW All In.

At AEW All In, CM Punk and Jack Perry got into a backstage fight after Perry referred to a previous dispute between the two live on air. The incident led to Punk being fired from the company, while Perry received a lengthy suspension.

At the time, it was reported that Samoa Joe was the man to break up the fight and calm the situation down, allowing his match against Punk to go ahead. Now, the AEW World Champion has looked back on what happened.

Speaking to Marc Raimondi of ESPN, Joe played down the incident, saying that people “want it to be more than it was.”

“There was a little bit of an incident. We got it broken up. We went out there and wrestled, man. That’s the gist of it. Everybody wants it to be a lot more than what it is, but that’s what it was. And to speak any more on it would be pointless unless you’re trying to get a scorecard and stuff — but trust me, it wasn’t that type of a fight.”

Joe explained that the altercation wasn’t a big deal to him as he’s seen it all before.

“Not to me. I’ve seen fights break out. Stuff happens. But again, that’s me. I’ve been in these situations, I’ve seen that. I’ll find it funny when people are like, ‘Oh, Joe’s cool with it.’ I mean, nah man, it was a high-stress situation. Sure. But I mean, it’s one I’ve seen happen many times.

“We get it squashed out. We had a show to do. We had [81,035] fans waiting out there. And that was my focus, because that’s what it was about at that moment. We’re about to go out and have the best night of our lives.”

For the Samoan Submission Machine, the important thing was to get everyone focused on the match ahead.

“Hey, listen, we all understood that there was something to be done. There was a mission ahead of us and everybody just got focused. And hey, if I was a part of that, cool. But my intention was to get out there and get this show on the road.”

Samoa Joe To Defend AEW World Championship On Dynamite

Samoa Joe ended 2023 on hight when he captured the AEW World Title from MJF at Worlds End. The star is now hoping to start 2024 in similar fashion with a successful title defence against an unlikely challenger, HOOK.

On the Homecoming Edition of Dynamite, HOOK confronted the champion and simply told him “One week” and pointed to the title. The match between the two was later made official and will take place on the January 17th edition of Dynamite.

H/T to Fightful for the above transcription.