In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani as part of The MMA Hour, WWE superstar CM Punk discussed several topics, including his time in All Elite Wrestling, requesting his release after AEW All Out 2022, the backstage incident at AEW All In: London 2023, his departure after the incident and more.

“Tony’s big idea was a separate show and we are going to separate everybody and I said that will never work, just let me go, get me out of here, pay me my money, I’m already off TV, I hurt this arm, just get me out of here, and it was no, I can’t let you go, and I was like why, just let me go, who cares, it’s best, these guys don’t want me here, this isn’t a real business, this isn’t a business that’s predicated on making money, drawing money, selling tickets, doing business, it’s not what it was sold to me as, let me go. No, I can’t let you go, I’m going to do this new show.

The second day we have this show, I’m sitting catering minding my own business, Tony Schiavone comes and gets me and he said hey, I really need your help, Jack is cussing me out, he’s cussed out Mike Mansury, he’s cussed out Daryl from production and he’s cussing out the doctor right now. I was like, dude isn’t supposed to be here, I was told people are getting separated so there’s not problems, and you don’t want me involved in this, you all need to handle this because if you don’t, I’m going to handle it and you’re not going to like the way I handle it, prophetic words.

He’s begging me, he drags me out of catering, HOOK and Jack are doing an angle, I don’t know anything about Jack going on vacation, all I know is there’s a litany of people that work one day a week, they don’t want to, so they want to show up and wrestle and then film vignettes and sit at home for four weeks, great, it’s not my company, do what you want, but not on my show. That was my attitude, so I said Tony, do you really want me doing this. Yeah. I walked up to Jack and he’s sitting in a rental car, what he wanted to do was smash the window of the rental car with a pipe and I was like, it’s a rental car.

I was very polite, because I like Jack and I was like Doc told you no, Daryl told you no, Mike told you no, Schiavone told you no, and now I have to tell you no, apparently you cussed them all out, so I’m telling you no, we don’t do that here, if you want to do this, go to Wednesday and do it. He had no problem, he said okay, well I thought it was a really cool idea and I said, it might be but it’s a rental car, you’re going to ruin it for the boys, you’re going to smash the window of a rental car and return it with no f***ing window and no National, Budget, Hertz, whatever are going to be like, don’t rent cars to pro wrestlers any more.

This is a thing that’s happened, I wasn’t trying to throw my weight around, like this is my show, I’m like this is dumb and he wanted to do it so he wouldn’t have to fly back to Canada. Sorry man, we’re privileged to be in this, we’re privileged to do this for a living, I get it, I didn’t want to go to Canada either, all the flights were either delayed or cancelled, everybody’s travel sucked, but to come to this new show and everyone’s supposed to be separated, get rid of all the drama and then there’s swearing at the doctors, because the doctor is like it’s real glass, the s*** is going to go in your eye.

I get it, I used to be that kid that was young and I was like, I want to do this, but there’s a safe way to do it, I politely explained that to him, I didn’t raise my voice, I didn’t cuss at him, I said we don’t do that here, this is Saturday, it’s a different show, if you want to do stuff like that, do it on Wednesday. I didn’t think there was going to be a problem, he obviously took something very business-minded very personally, that’s fine because I’ve done that before too, but it’s very much who he is friends with and s*** never got squashed, nobody’s in charge and it turned into what it turned into.

I went to Tony Khan and I was like, please handle that, he was like what do you want me to do, and I was like, I’m not telling you what to do, be the boss please, I’m tired of this s***, I told you it was a mistake, I told you separate shows weren’t going to work, and now we’re all here, please handle it, because if you don’t, you’re not going to like the way I handle it. Jack came back from his match, I was the next match, I’m sitting there and I’ve got people with me, I’m not going to say who they are, because I have a lot of friends who work there, I wish them all well and I don’t want them to be punished because they’re friends with me.

I walked up to him and I’m like Jack, why do you insist on doing this dumb internet s*** on TV, and he’s like well, if you’ve got a problem about it, then do something about and I was just like, come on man, I can f***ing kill you, what are we doing. I thought I was doing the responsible thing, I didn’t punch anybody, I choked somebody a little bit. Samoa Joe was there, he told me to stop and then I quit, I turned to Tony and I said this place is a f***ing joke man, you’re a clown, I quit, I went to my room and then Joe and Jerry Lynn came and got me and they were like let’s just go out there and kill it. I was just too fired up, and I’m fired up now I’m probably going to regret talking about all this s***, but that’s what happened. I can’t tell you what Tony felt, or what he was thinking, but I never did anything that would make him fear for his life.”

The full interview is available at this link.