The issues between those in AEW who don’t like CM Punk and the former World Heavyweight Champion have not improved following his interview with ESPN and his return promo on last Saturday’s Collision episode.
The promo came one day after the interview, which upset people in the promotion. In that promo, Punk said the line, “You know what David Zaslav calls me? One Bill Phil. That’s because I am the one true genuine article in a business full of counterfeit Bucks.” This was a clear shot at The Young Bucks.
As previously reported, those close to Punk expect him to appear on tonight’s episode of Dynamite, and The Elite will not be appearing live on the show.
While speaking with POST Wrestling’s Brandon Thurston and John Pollock, Wrestling Obserever’s Dave Meltzer noted things haven’t improved within the promotion.
“One thing on the show tonight. You know, one of the one people…one of the top guys was told that we would not have to deal with Punk except for on pay-per-view. And it’s like, but here he is, week one. It’s not like it’s a surprise or anything. It’s just, you know, these ideas change or what people are told change. People are kind of like, this is the company, it’s a new company. That’s all there is. You know, that’s how people view it. It’s a new company. As far as business-wise, what that means, we’ll find out. And as far as morale-wise, it depends on how Punk is. Punk needs to be magnanimous with everyone, and I think you will probably try at least with most, but, there’s a lot of divisiveness that, it’s so frustrating to me because I see it so closely and I feel it shouldn’t be there. And, you know, it’s worse now than it’s been. It hasn’t gotten better now. Right now, it’s at a pretty bad point again.”
Meltzer continued after being asked whether the promo made things worse.
“Yeah. Nobody was really, it’s like, ‘Okay, it’s whatever.’ And then the ESPN story was the talk of the locker room on Wednesday, which led to a lot of issues. I am of the impression that people were expecting worse than it turned out to be. But you still have people who are, the people who really like Adam Page, were not happy, you know? And I think there’s this feeling of everyone there is pretty much told, like, ‘Keep the stuff on the inside, on the inside that if it gets out, it’s not good for the company.’ And then the feeling is that one side is agreeing to do that, and the other side is not. But the thing is, on both sides, they think it’s the other side. So it becomes like a really weird thing.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit POST Wrestling with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
