AEW All In in August 2023, CM Punk and Jack Perry got into a scuffle backstage after the latter took a shot at the Second City Saint in a match that aired during the pre-show. Punk was fired by Tony Khan, and Perry was suspended until eventually returning as a heel in an angle that saw him beat up the AEW President in one of 2024's worst segments.
Punk returned to WWE, a shock to Khan considering the fact that he claimed the Best in the World left him in fear for his life (comments he likely believed would lessen the chances of WWE signing Punk).
After the Second City Saint broke his silence on the All In incident and Khan's failings as a boss, the billionaire decided to air the footage on AEW Dynamite...likely hoping it would somehow embarrass or discredit Punk. Spoiler alert: It didn't work.
Things played out almost exactly like Punk said, and a bizarre attempt was made to make the footage part of The Young Bucks' ongoing feud with FTR. It felt like the creative we saw in the dying days of WCW from Vince Russo, and ultimately just made Punk, who now works for a different company, look badass.
Perry has never said much about the incident with Punk and its fallout, but broke his silence on how it's changed his mindset in a recent interview with Renee Paquette.
"I feel like I’ve grown a lot from it, but I feel like the growth came from a lot of it sounds dramatic to say pain, but it wasn’t the nicest of times, for most of that time," Perry explained. "It really freed me in a lot of ways. It’s kind of like before all that feels like another lifetime at this point, and I think back to how I felt before that, and a big thing I had was like, it sounds silly, I just wanted everyone to like me."
"I was new to being on TV. This was my dream job since I was a little kid, and I wanted to do it perfectly, and I wanted everyone to like me, and it’s not something I worry about so much in my real life, but this was different. I wanted to micromanage it and make it perfect."
"So then when I would come up short of that, it was very disappointing, and coming up short of anything sucks, but doing it in such a public way, and then there are a million people telling you you’re a piece of s**t or whatever, it’s hard."
"Through all that, I finally realised there are some people that are never gonna like me no matter what I do," he added, "and in a way that was really freeing because then I was like, 'I don’t have to worry about that anymore, what do I wanna do?'"
Perry's unprofessionalism was a major contributing factor to Punk's AEW departure, but it was only the straw that broke the camel's back. Something was bound to happen eventually, even if this hadn't, so holding a grudge against him for the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion being fired isn't entirely fair.
You can hear more from Perry in the player below.