Michelle Beadle and CM Punk got into a bit of a war of words after Beadle supposedly made some remarks about AJ Lee, Punk’s girlfriend, at WWE’s Tribute to the Troops event late last year.
Wrestling fans are very familiar with Michelle Beadle, not only as the star of ESPN 2’s SportsNation, but as a sports celebrity with many friends in the wrestling world.
Backstage at the Tribute To The Troops event, Michelle Beadle and CM Punk bumped into each other, as old pals do. Beadle made a comment which started a confrontation between Beadle and AJ Lee. Beadle was fairly tight-lipped about the situation, only releasing a short statement on Twitter about a month after the incident. CM Punk made comments during his final interview before leaving the WWE outlining his side of the story. But only recently did Michelle Beadle reply with her side of the story on Jim Ross’ podcast, The Ross Report.
“Usually when things like this happen I try to ignore them. I just think, ‘okay, crap happens, the world will never know, blah, blah, blah’. But then, you know, I went to Tribute to the Troops and was honored to be asked to be a part of it by WWE and got to do a thing in the ring with John Cena and a couple things there. The back story… the thing about it is is social media is so whacked. All that stuff came out and it was ‘oh, you were flirting’. Look: First of all, when I’m flirting people will know I’m flirting. I’ve also known Phil for a few years at this point and I had, at that time, considered him a friend. We texted on a regular basis, we’ve had dinner numerous times; it’s just one of those things where he’s not my friend, whatever. It was what it was. I thought it was a friendship, I guess I was wrong.”
Michelle Beadle continues:
“But I show up at Tribute to the Troops, I see him in the hallway, I say ‘what up, f-face’, which is my very loving way of referring to my friends. Like, I don’t call my friends… I just… I’m an idiot. I call them all kinds of names, that’s how you know I like you. He was alone in a hallway, he didn’t really say anything. I was with P.R. from WWE and my assistant and we walked by. The next thing I know, she’s in my face yelling at me and I honestly, I swear to you, thought it was a joke. I thought I was being set up for like a ‘ha ha ha’. And I looked up at him and he wouldn’t look at me and he kept his back to us and she kept going and I just was blown away. So that was kind of it. I thought, ‘all right, no big deal’. WWE was apologetic to me on site and I just said ‘it’s not your problem, people are who they are’ and that was it. I thought it had died but when I got home like that following week it hit all the blogs and all the wrestling peeps had all this information and that’s when I finally… I issued like a three part tweet just to say my side of the story because it was getting really old (hearing) that I was trying to take someone’s man or whatever high school crap people want to say.”
Beadle concludes:
“So, that’s all. And, you know, Phil and I stopped being friends that day and I wish him the best of luck and that’s it. It’s a bummer because I always respected him. I thought he was one of those cool guys that kind of didn’t fall into a certain role and kind of did what he wanted but to watch all that happen and to have somebody tattle on me and have their girlfriend get in my face is a little pathetic. But it’s okay, I’ve moved on.”
The amount of detail that Michelle Beadle provided on The Ross Report will most likely garner some praise from fans as up until now, little detail had been provided by either side.
Michelle Beadle has plenty of opportunities to make new friends; a few weeks ago Beadle was chumming it up with John Hamm talking about his movie, Million Dollar Arm . Another way Michelle Beadle is winning fans over is by doing great by her fans, such as accompanying a paralyzed hockey player to his prom .
Time will tell if the two sides will ever make up, but it’s no skin off her back as far as Michelle Beadle is concerned.
[Image Via Bing]