CM Punk On Tony Khan: I Told Him This Place Is A Joke, He’s A Clown And I Quit Before My Match At Wembley Stadium

It might’ve been April Fools Day, but this was no joke whatsoever.

CM Punk was once again the fire to the fuel as he made his way onto the MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani where he spoke about a wide variety of topics, including his time spent at All Elite Wrestling where his hands did most of the talking on more than one occasion.

Punk would detail the post-incident of the Brawl Out at All Out before his encounter with Jack Perry at All In at Wembley Stadium. Here is where Punk spoke about how it all started and what he told Tony Khan as soon as things exploded.

“Tony’s big idea was a separate show. We’re going to separate everybody. I said, ‘That’ll never work, just let me go. Get me out of here. Pay me money. I’ve been off TV. Just let me out of here.’ ‘No, I can’t let you go.’ ‘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 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 in catering, minding my own business, and Tony Schiavone comes and gets me, ‘I really need your help.’ ‘What?’ ‘Jack is cussing me out, he cussed out Mike Mansury, he cussed out Daryl from production, he’s cussing out the doctor right now.’ ‘Why?’ I was immediately like, ‘Dude isn’t supposed to be here. I was told people are getting separated so there are not problems. You don’t want me involved in this. Just like everything I explained before, y’all need to handle this. If you don’t, I’m going to handle it and you’re not going to like the way I handle it.’ He’s begging me. He drags me out of catering. HOOK and Jack are doing an angle,” Punk said. “I don’t know anything about Jack going on vacation. All I know is there are a litany of people that work one day a week and they don’t want to. They want to show up, wrestle, and film vignettes then sit at home for four weeks. Great. Not my company, do what you want, but not on my show. That was my attitude. I said, ‘Tony, you really want me doing this?’ ‘Yeah.’ I walked up to Jack, he’s sitting in the car. What he wanted to do was smash the window of the rental car with a pipe. I was like, ‘It’s a rental car.’ I very politely, because I like Jack, ‘Doc has told you no. Daryl has told you no. Mike has told you no. Schiavone has told you no. Now, I have to tell you no. Apparently, you’ve cussed them all out. I’m telling you no. We don’t do that here. You want to do this, go to Wednesday and do it.’ He had no problem. He said, ‘Okay. I just thought it was a cool idea.’ I said, ’It might be. This is a rental car. The boys are in it for the boys. You’re going to smash the window of a rental car and return it with no window? Now, National Budget is going to be like, ‘Don’t rent cars to pro wrestlers anymore.’ This is a thing that has happened.

“I wasn’t trying to throw my weight around, ‘this is my show, you have to get out of here.’ It’s just fucking dumb,” he continued. “He wanted to do it so he didn’t have to fly back to Canada. Sorry man, we’re privileged to be in this business and do this for a living. I get it. I didn’t want to go to Canada either. All the flights were delayed, canceled. Everyone’s traveling sucked. To come to this new show when everyone is supposed to be separated, to get rid of all the drama. Swearing at the doctor. The doctor is like, ‘it’s real glass. Shit is going to go in your eye.’ I get it. I used to be that kid who was young and wanted to do this. There is a safe way to do this. I politely explained that to him. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t cuss at him. I was just like, ‘We don’t do that here. This is Saturday. You want to do stuff like this, do it on Wednesday.’ That was it. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem. He obviously took something very business-minded, very personally. That’s fine. I’ve done that before too. It’s very much who he is friends with and shit never got squashed. Nobody is in charge. It turned into what it turned into.”

Following the quote that Perry had at Wembley that was directed at Punk, this is what Punk had to say about the entire ordeal.

“I went to Tony Khan and was like, ‘Please handle that. Please.’ He’s like, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘I’m not telling you what to do. Just be the boss, please. I’m tired of this shit. I told you it was a mistake. I told you separate shows wasn’t going to work and now we’re all here. Please, handle it. If you don’t, you’re not going to like the way I handle it.’”

“Jack came back from his match. I’m the next match, I’m sitting there. I got people with me. I’m not going to say who they are because I have a lot of friends who work there and I wish them all well and I don’t want them to be punished because they’re friends with me,” he said. “I walk up to him and I’m like, ‘Jack, why do you insist on doing this dumb internet shit on TV?’ He’s like, if you have a problem, do something about it.’ I was like, ‘Come on man. I can fucking kill you. What are we doing?’ It’s like Chael [Chael Sonnen] says, ‘I can’t let you get close.’ I thought I was doing the responsible thing. I didn’t punch anybody. I just choked somebody a little bit. Samoa Joe was there, told me to stop. I quit. I turned to Tony and said, ‘This place is a fucking joke. You’re a clown. I quit.’ I went to my room, Joe and Jerry Lynn came and got me and we’re like, ‘Let’s go out there and kill it.’ I was too fired up. I’m fired up now. I’m probably going to regret talking about all this shit, but that’s what happened,” he said. “That match, I’m like, this is the last time I’m ever going to wrestle Samoa Joe. This is my last match in this company.”

And it was the final time that Punk and current AEW World Champion Samoa Joe stepped in the ring together with Punk walking away victorious.

h/t from Fightful.

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