CM Punk sets record straight on backstage incident that got him fired from AEW

When All Elite Wrestling president Tony Khan read a statement in late September about the firing of CM Punk, something just didn’t quite feel right.

Speaking after the company’s “All In” pay-per-view card in London, Khan said a backstage altercation between Punk and fellow wrestler Jack Perry made him fear for his life and prompted him to fire Punk out of fear for the safety of the rest of the AEW locker room.

Though many suspected Khan was exaggerating the details of the event that led to AEW parting ways with its biggest star, Punk set the record straight on exactly how things went down during a Monday interview on “The MMA Hour” with Ariel Helwani.

“Jack came back from his match, I was the next match, I’m sitting there…and I walk up to him and I’m just like, ‘Why do you insist on doing this dumb internet [expletive] on TV?’” Punk said. “And he’s just like, ‘Well if you’ve got a problem [with] it then do something about it.’ And I was just like, ‘Come on man, I would [expletive] kill you. What are we doing? … I thought I was doing the responsible thing. I didn’t punch anybody, I just choked somebody a little bit.”

The “dumb internet” stuff Punk was referring to was Perry’s pitch to writers to smash the window of a rental car on television despite being told by several AEW officials and the company doctor it was too dangerous to use real glass.

During Perry’s pre-show match with Hook ahead of the “All In” pay-per-view, Perry took a bump through the windshield of a limousine and after the match bragged to the camera that it was real glass.