CM Punk has been more vocal about his thoughts on pro wrestling in recent weeks, and the subject of AEW has come up during several interviews. In a recent interview with ScreenRant while promoting his new movie, Girl on the Third Floor , the actor said that AEW needs to stop paying attention to WWE and instead focus on their own product.
“I think AEW needs to focus on themselves and stop talking about WWE,” Punk said. “Cody and The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley, all those guys have something great going on. I just think it lessens and cheapens what they are doing when they constantly attack WWE. There hasn’t been an alternative to WWE in so very long, and I think they do a disservice to themselves when they’re trying to be the alternative but constantly bring up WWE.”
AEW has taken several shots at WWE since its inception. At the Double or Nothing pay-per-view earlier this year, Cody Rhodes smashed up a throne with a sledgehammer in what was clearly a reference to Triple H.
Chris Jericho also criticized WWE’s creative team during a recent episode of Dynamite . During a promo segment, the crowd broke into a “We the people” chant for his stablemate, Jake Hager, who used that catchphrase in WWE while wrestling as Jack Swagger. Jericho, however, said the catchphrase is dead and is an example of WWE’s poor ideas.
TONIGHT at 8/7c – @tntdrama will air a special encore edition of #AEWDynamite from Wednesday, including Never Seen Before Footage of what happened after Dynamite went off the air. pic.twitter.com/ATgWNU0U0b
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) October 25, 2019
Furthermore, on this week’s Dynamite , Rhodes took another shot at WWE by referring to it as “that other company” while addressing Jericho during a promo segment. During the promo, he insinuated that WWE doesn’t let their superstars engage in brawls with their opponents if one is standing in the ring and the other is located elsewhere.
While Punk has been commenting on the current state of the wrestling industry, it might only be a matter of time before he returns to in-ring action. As The Inquisitr recently reported, he’s more than open to returning to the squared circle if he’s offered the right deal. Should AEW or WWE open their checkbook to sign him, he could put his name on the dotted line.
Both AEW and WWE have expressed their interest in hiring Punk should he be interested. AEW has already made him offers in the past, while WWE haven’t ruled out doing so in the future. Triple H says that the past is the past, and Punk returning would make sense from a business perspective.