Report: CM Punk ‘Angrily & Aggressively’ Confronted AEW Star Backstage

AEW

UPDATE: For all further updates and clarification on the CM Punk situation, click here.

CM Punk has been back in the news today, as reports of him taking charge of the tapings of AEW Collision have emerged online.

The reports come after a promo Punk cut against Hangman Page after last week’s Collision show to the live crowd.

Page was reportedly slated to be at last week’s Collision, where he would have pre-taped an interview, but he was instead sent away from the building, filming the segment elsewhere.

As well as Page, Christopher Daniels and Ryan Nemeth have also been sent away from episodes of Collision at the request of Punk himself.

In the case of Daniels, Punk sent him away due to his friend Ace Steel being prevented from being backstage at Collision despite his involvement in the All Out situation, with him believing that Daniels should also not be allowed to be present.

Per PWTorch, more information has come to light on the issues between Punk and Nemeth, which stem from a tweet Nemeth made during Punk’s return promo, calling him ‘literally the softest man alive’.

Per PWTorch:

When Punk made an unadvertised appearance at Dynamite on June 21, PWTorch has learned that he confronted Ryan Nemeth backstage over a tweet where Nemeth indicated loyalty to The Elite. Nemeth had referred to Punk as “literally the softest man alive” in response to Punk referring to the Young Bucks as “Counterfeit Bucks.”

Nemeth is known to be close to the Bucks, as he has appeared in their “Being the Elite” YouTube video series.

At that Dynamite, PWTorch sources indicated Punk confronted Nemeth in the locker room. The story conveyed to PWTorch is that Punk cornered Nemeth in the locker room, got inches from his face, and angrily and aggressively asked if they had a problem or if they needed to settle things outside. Punk cited to Nemeth that his comments on Twitter inflamed existing tensions and that the optics of the tweet sent a bad message. This incident was witnessed by numerous wrestlers and was characterized as awkward and weird.

Nemeth moved the argument to the hallway, where Punk continued to berate him, according to our sources. Nemeth defended his judgment in calling Punk “soft” since Punk fired the first shots at the Bucks. Punk pushed back that his timing was bad and worked against the public image they were going for that everyone was either on the same page or at least not inflaming prior issues. Nemeth then asked Punk if he shouldn’t react to things Punk says on TV and Punk said that’d be the right choice at that time. Then they shook hands, but apparently the tension was still high as they went their separate ways.

Nemeth confided the incident in friends backstage and asked how to handle the situation. Nemeth has almost no leverage in AEW compared to Punk, who is a much bigger star, so Nemeth backed off and laid low, since his job could be at risk if Punk spoke out behind the scenes against him. He even has since deactivated his Twitter account

Another name that was sent away from Collision previously was Matt Hardy, but as with Page, it has not been reported whether or not this was at the request of Punk.

Punk reportedly ‘felt bad’ about his comments regarding Hangman Page, believing they ‘didn’t come across the way he intended’.

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• Ryan nemeth
• Dynamite
• cm punk
• AEW

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