Brian "Road Dogg" James will be best known to many of you as a former Tag Team Champion and member of D-Generation X. These days, however, he's WWE's Senior Vice President of Live Events and a podcast host.
In the past, James has been critical of CM Punk and never shied away from criticising the former AEW star (including when he was fired by the company). However, with the Best in the World back in WWE, a great many fences have been mended and even Punk's greatest detractors have buried the hatchet with him.
Now, we can count the WWE Hall of Famer as being among them. During the latest edition of Oh You Didn't Know?, Road Dogg revealed what happened when he crossed paths with Punk backstage for the first time since he returned at Survivor Series: WarGames.
"He and I, first time I saw him, and he was sitting at a catering table, and he and I met eyes, and he stood up, and we shook hands, and we kind of didn't say anything for a minute. And then he literally, and I feel safe sharing this because I shared it with him face-to-face the following day, how impactful it was, he literally like shrugged his shoulders and went like, 'Aw, come on!' and pulled me in and hugged me."
"I'll tell you the truth, it immediately made me feel like an a-hole, like I'm a piece of crap. It humbled me in myself, if that makes sense. It humbled me in a way where I thought, 'I have talked negatively about you, and I've thought negatively about you, and then you embraced me. And wow.'"
"It all drained out of me when he shrugged like, 'Aw, come on.' It harkens me back to 'brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug,' and he pulled me in, and we hugged, dude. I don't know man; it made me feel good for him to do that, by the way. It made me feel really good. But it made me immediately feel like, ashamed of my behavior."
"I'm at peace now with me and him. My side of the street is clean now; I can sleep at night. But I believe his is too. What made me feel weird, is I believe his was already. Like, he wasn't as inside his head about me. I get that, because I am neurotic. Anyway, it was all positive, all positive. Super positive. Even in our working relationship, there was huge strides made, and again, I'll repeat, he has proven already that the needle will move in many ways."
This confirms that Punk has also turned a corner and isn't looking to get into any issues with even those who have torn him to pieces in recent years.
WWE is a very different environment to AEW, of course, and with Triple H calling the shots and not allowing that sort of unprofessionalism backstage, we're not expecting any sort of "Brawl Out" repeat down the line. James is the latest WWE personality to praise Punk, anyway, and it seems all is copacetic right now!
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