Matt Hardy feels CM Punk “knew he had a hold on Tony Khan, to a degree” during AEW run
Former WWE and AEW star Matt Hardy recently discussed CM Punk and specifically his run in AEW before he eventually returned to WWE. Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, Hardy would talk about the difference in behaviour between the CM Punk in AEW and WWE, at least from his perspective:
“I feel like when Punk was in AEW, he knew he had a hold on Tony Khan to a degree, that he could kind of get away with what he wanted. If he had something he was dead set on wanting to do, that he could kind of flex his muscles and he could get away with it” Hardy would begin. “I think he could sniff that out of Tony, from Tony not being around and running a wrestling company for decades or years, whatever.”
(For balance, the relationship between CM Punk and Tony Khan appeared to be very good before their well publicised issues happened. We will look further into whether the claims here made by Hardy about Khan/Punk’s working status played out like that and update as and when we can)
Matt Hardy on CM Punk in AEW vs WWE
Matt would also add that he thinks Punk “couldn’t get away with” that same type of attitude in WWE:
“I think when he [Punk] came back to WWE, I think he knew he couldn’t get away with that same type of attitude or mentality. It is what it is. He came back there and a lot of people thought he was going to stir up some sort of controversy or conflict, and he didn’t. He was a by-the-book guy, and it seemed like he was a model company employee. I think it’s hard to dispute that.“
There were recent rumors that were unsubstantiated regarding Punk and his WWE status. Our own Dave Meltzer recently addressed the rumors of Punk potentially going back to AEW, saying he is NOT leaving WWE:
“He’s not leaving [WWE] and he’s not going back [to AEW], okay? I mean, I don’t want to say never because you never say never, [but] it’s not happening now. It’s not even something to be concerned about. In four years when he’s 51 years old or whatever he’s going to be…could he have a falling out with WWE? Yes. Could he want to go to AEW at that point in his life? If he doesn’t have so much money and AEW is doing really good because you ain’t going to go to AEW if they’re not doing well, [but] there’s a lot of bad blood there [between Punk and AEW].”
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