Ricky Starks: CM Punk Was Very Instrumental For Me In AEW, The Guy Never Did Me Wrong

Ricky Starks will always have a love for CM Punk.

Before he departed from the promotion. CM Punk was the face of AEW Collision and played a huge part in making sure a lot of guys got matches and TV time to showcase their skills when they couldn’t do it on AEW Dynamite or Rampage. Punk would soon be terminated from his contract due to a backstage fight with Jack Perry at All In in Wembley Stadium.

In a conversation with WhatCulture Wrestling, this is what Ricky Starks had to say about the help that he got from Punk during his run on Collision.

“Dude, it was incredible. Even beyond those guys, who have history, they’re veterans, but don’t forget, the [Young] Bucks are also two guys that I’ve talked to and gone to. They’ve been super helpful and really knowledgeable as well. So it’s not just the veterans. It’s people who are more experienced than I am. So I love all those guys. They’ve been very helpful in that regard. Punk was very instrumental in my presentation on Collision. There’s a video clip that constantly gets reshared where the pyro is going off and exploding. That was Punk’s idea. Punk has a vision for trying to help out certain people. I do remember a conversation with him where he was like, ‘You know, it’s really up to you to swim. Sink or swim.’ I felt like a lot of stress on myself and pressure on myself to constantly out-perform my last match that I had, just to prove that if he was going to put his name on me, so to speak, or be the one to push for me, then I needed to do my part to make sure that I never let that down,” Starks said.

“Punk was very instrumental in making sure, like, hey, we should try to do something different with this dude. I think Punk is the only one that was closest to really understanding me in that regard, when it came to how I came up in the car [on AEW Collision]. I had that, and then I was one with the bag. Every time he would see my outfit, he laugh and be like, ‘This is perfect.’ So there was a great collaboration going on in that regard. So that’s why I have no issue with Punk. I don’t give a fuck what anybody tries to tell me. I don’t care. He has never done me wrong. You can have your opinions on him and all that, but you shouldn’t vilify someone for thinking differently than you. I will say that til I’m blue in the face. He really went out of his way to really try to make something on that Collision show for me, and I feel like it was working. I feel like we were really onto something. He was a great dude, and I still think Punk is a good dude, in my opinion. He tried to help a lot of us on that show, and I can always be thankful for that,” Starks said.

Starks is not injured, but he has said there has been no word yet on when he will be able to return to AEW TV anytime soon.

h/t to Fightful for the transcriptions.

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