CM Punk’s two-year stint in AEW will go down in historical past as one of the crucial notorious durations within the man’s profession. He was welcomed with open arms at “The First Dance” version of “AEW Rampage” in 2021, earlier than happening to have standout matches with Darby Allin and Eddie Kingston in addition to a prolonged feud with MJF. Nevertheless, after his first reign with the AEW World Championship, issues went south in a short time, entering into brawls backstage with The Elite and Jack Perry, earlier than getting fired in September 2023.
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Punk’s final match on TV was an eight-man tag group bout on the August 26, 2023 “AEW Collision,” which additionally featured Swerve Strickland. Talking with “Bootleg Kev,” Strickland opened up about his interactions with Punk, and so they have been all optimistic. “I had nice experiences with him,” Strickland stated. “I did not work together with him quite a bit, however I at all times had good, optimistic interactions. My first day there, I used to be taking my photographs and my renders, he jumped in and photobombed it. I by no means even spoke to him, by no means had an introduction to him, however that was his first interplay to me, and I used to be like ‘oh man that is cool, that is dope.”
Strickland’s debut for AEW got here at Revolution 2022, the identical evening that Punk defeated MJF in a Canine Collar Match, and although he was getting ready for a conflict with Maxwell Jacob Friedman, Punk nonetheless had time to see how Strickland’s section went. “I went out, did my contract signing and he is like ‘how did it go man?’ I used to be like ‘dude it went wonderful thanks.’ He is at all times been a optimistic affect on me.”
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Please credit score “Bootleg Kev” when utilizing quotes from this text, and provides a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.