The controversial interview everyone has been waiting for has arrived.
On Friday afternoon, ESPN’s Marc Raimondi released his interview with CM Punk to promote his All Elite Wrestling return on the series premiere of AEW Collision this Saturday night at the United Center in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
During the interview, “The Best in the World” reflected on “Hangman” Adam Page shooting on him in the ring and how he had concerns with working with him while injured due to similar expectations.
“And I proceed to have what I think is a garbage match because I’m trying to protect myself on stuff instead of actually just working and trying to put on the best performance I can,” Punk said. “I’m keeping an eye out. He chopped me in the mouth one time, and I’m just like, ‘OK, did you do that on purpose?’ You chip my tooth, and I’m like, ‘All right, should I give him a receipt?’ It changes the dynamic. It poisoned everything for me, and it made it all really, really ugly, and that was what set all of this off, and here we are over a year later and ain’t s— been done about it.”
“The Second City Saint” also reflected on the infamous AEW ALL OUT media scrum and the controversy that surrounded it.
“The first thing I said to Tony when I sat down with him and spoke to him after it was, ‘Man, I’m really sorry I put you in that position,’” Punk said. “I apologize for the scrum. But when you’ve watched that scrum, you’re looking at a very, very frustrated guy who had told people. That’s not the first time he heard all that. It’s not the first time lawyers were told all that. And I was just looking for something to be done and nothing got done. So, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. And I just didn’t approach it in the right manner, but tension was high. I was very, very pissed. I pretty much knew that I had just injured myself again. I was hurt, and I was disappointed. Yeah, it’s very easy for me to say I regret that and I handled it the wrong way, 100%.”
Punk continued, “I don’t think what happened was a big deal. This has happened in the last 10 months in hockey, in basketball, in baseball, in just about every sport. And it’s covered and it’s gone the next day. I think because I have injured my tricep and I’ve been out for so long, I think it has been exacerbated. I think it’s been exacerbated by people spreading lies about the whole thing. And when, in reality, my attitude is, well, sh*t happens.”
“Now we all got to roll in the f*cking mud, and that never should have happened and has never been course-corrected,” Punk said. “So, I understand people want to say that, ‘Oh, man, Punk is a dick.’ Well yeah, because I’m defending myself and I will always defend myself. I’m open to have a full-blown f*cking sit-down powwow discussion with everybody about it. But it hasn’t happened yet, and it’s not because of my lack of trying.”
Check out the complete interview at ESPN.com.
