Joe speaks about CM Punk and what occurred at All In.
Prior to CM Punk and Samoa Joe opening AEW All In with their ‘Real World Championship’ bout, there was a physical altercation between Punk and Jack Perry. As a result, Perry was suspended from AEW and Punk’s wrestler and employee contracts were terminated.
That situation became a topic of conversation during Joe’s conversation with New York Post. The reigning ROH World Television Champion spoke about his off-screen relationship with Punk. He enjoyed being in the ring with him for their recent program and says their relationship, especially in recent years, is mostly non-wrestling related.
When it comes to the altercation, Joe was focused on getting the show on the road. He added that he’s used to environments like that and it did not affect him.
A tremendous amount (Joe explained how much it meant to him to add more to his history with CM Punk). I’ve always enjoyed the many minutes I’ve spent in the ring with Punk and to be able to revisit that at this point in our careers was a big thing for us both personally. It was good to get back in there and scrap around with him a bit and entertain a ton of people in the process.
I’d imagine there are tons of things that are misunderstood or portrayed about him. Now, what those things are, it’s who’s representing in what way. I can’t really give you a blanket statement as far as what those things are. For the most part, our relationship has been very, especially for these years, has been very non-wrestling related. It’s just been extraneous stuff outside of the world of wrestling and talking about life stuff.
For the most part, I haven’t read what’s been portrayed (about the altercation at All In). There’s been so much said. I’m not the one to go out there and try to debunk everything. I know we had the initial incident. Everybody rallied. Everybody got together. Got their heads together and lined up and got ready to do the show and we went out there and we did the show.
That really was the focus at that point in time. We got a massive show to do and we got fans out there rabid to see that happen. So it’s important that we step up and do it and it’s important that we did and I was proud to be a part of that.
That’s up to whoever perceived it (if it was as intense as described). I’m used to that environment. Those things don’t seem very intense to me, but it could be something crazy intense to someone else. I wasn’t really affected by the moment. I was more focused on getting the show back on track and getting us going because it was bell time.
On the marquee for AEW Dynamite Grand Slam on 9/20 is Joe challenging MJF for the AEW World Championship. The moment between Joe and MJF from NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II in 2016 has been referenced and brought up several times leading up to this match.
Looking back at the moment, Joe said it was spontaneous. Those in the production truck found it humorous and decided to keep it in as they were on a bit of delay.
I always feel like if you’re gonna take up screen time, at least be somewhat interesting. We were walking down the hallway (at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II). He (MJF) was maybe doing too good of a job trying to clear things out. I put him up into the wall. I think after everyone kind of took a look at it and had a hilarious chuckle and it ended up sticking around and staying.
I think it was close to live where we had a little bit of a delay because we were running (video) packages and stuff like that. By the time it got to the truck, it was gonna be broadcast pretty shortly afterward and they were all about it.
As of this writing, here are the matches scheduled for Dynamite Grand Slam:
- AEW World Championship: MJF (c) vs. Samoa Joe
- AEW Women’s World Championship: Saraya (c) (w/ Ruby Soho) vs. Toni Storm
- Chris Jericho vs. Sammy Guevara
- ROH World & NJPW STRONG Openweight Championships: Claudio Castagnoli (c) vs. Eddie Kingston (c)
- AEW International Championship: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Rey Fénix (w/ Alex Abrahantes)
