CM Punk’s ESPN Interview Caused Backstage Controversies within AEW

CM Punk remains one of the most controversial pro wrestlers in recent memory and he makes headlines no matter what. While Punk has fans, he also has his fair share of detractors no matter what. Punk did an interview with ESPN and it appears that resulted in a lot of controversies backstage in the company.

Prior to his AEW return during the debut episode of Collision, CM Punk took part in an interview with ESPN’s Marc Raimondi. This marked the first-ever interview Punk did since the All Out brawl last year.

In the aforementioned interview, CM Punk went after Adam Page and called his match with Page at AEW Double or Nothing in 2022 ‘garbage.’ CM Punk claimed that Adam Page chipped his tooth during their match and a lot of other things.

According to Dave Meltzer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it was reported that the aforementioned ESPN interview caused “controversy” and that it “surprised people” backstage.

“The interview caused a lot of controversy behind-the-scenes for a multitude of reasons. First, the fact an interview that had not been released having its contents or potential contents talked about to the point it became news was noteworthy enough. There were issues having to do with the damage control attempts that we wrote about last week.

And there’s the obvious issue of the contents not only talked about internally before the story came out, but it being heavily reported how Punk went after Page, and had complained about the idea of whether Page was shooting on him in their match at the 2022 Double or Nothing show in Las Vegas ended up being reported on before ESPN’s story came out.”

Other reports suggested that Punk’s ESPN interview to be much worse than it turned out to be. Regardless, CM Punk is now back in the fold as part of AEW and fans can’t wait to see him as a regular on AEW television.

What’s your view on this story? Are you surprised by this backstage reaction? Let us know in the comments!