The brawl between CM Punk and The Elite following AEW All Out has become the stuff of legend, far surpassing the events of the pay-per-view that had finished hours before.
After winning the AEW World Championship, CM Punk took part in a media scrum alongside AEW President Tony Khan and launched into a verbal tirade against his former friend Colt Cabana, ‘Hangman’ Adam Page, and though he didn’t call them out by name, AEW EVP’s The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega, who he said “couldn’t manage a target.”
Enraged, The Elite confronted Punk in his dressing room, and the situation soon escalated into a brawl. Not only were punches thrown, Punk’s friend and trainer Ace Steel reportedly threw a chair at Nick Jackson in addition to biting Kenny Omega. Everyone involved was suspended, and Punk and The Elite were stripped of the championships they’d won at All Out. Ace Steel has since been released from the company, and while The Elite returned at AEW Full Gear, any potential of Punk returning remains in doubt.
Cody Rhodes’ Student Helped Pull Apart The AEW All Out Brawl Between CM Punk And The Elite
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on the latest episode of the MMA Hour, former AEW EVP Cody Rhodes spoke about the infamous brawl, revealing that one of his students from the Nightmare Factory was involved in pulling apart the melee.
“One of my students from the Nightmare Factory was involved in pulling apart whatever the scuffle was. And I told him, he’s got a job as a driver there. And I told him ‘Well, I feel terrible, I didn’t prepare you. We taught you how to do hip tosses, and do an interview, we didn’t teach you how to break up a backstage brawl.’
“So now when we do these beginners’ camps I always wanna be like ‘So guys, if you see two guys fighting immediately separate them’ just because he had that experience. I thought that was, that always popped me.”
Continuing, Cody Rhodes went in-depth on how he found out about the brawl, saying he received so many messages he was afraid someone had said something disparaging about him or his wife Brandi after they’d left the company earlier that year.
“Well, I woke up the next morning and I had, no joke, I think I had 63 messages. So I was very worried that something was said about me or Brandi, and I want to make sure like… I did everything I could. I gave a lot, and I have great memories with AEW. I do. So I hope it’s respected mutually, right?
“So I was worried, I was like ‘I hope somebody didn’t take a weird shot, something like that. And that wasn’t the case, it was about this press conference and all that.”
Cody Rhodes also addressed his relationship with The Young Bucks as well as with CM Punk, saying he remains neutral in the situation and that it hurt to see the promotion they’d built get damaged.
“I had a great relationship with Matt, Nick, and Kenny. Still do. It definitely was tested by being young executives. It was tested by having different opinions on wrestling, but our different opinions is what made it strong. That’s what made us work. I want to Crockett and old school, and they want to do PWG and west coast and damn, I loved it. I liked that, that contention is what made us bond. We’re bonded forever because of the things we did.
“I also had a great relationship with Punk. He was my dinner buddy, you know? They’d order dinner for me at AEW every week as one of my management perks or whatever. I don’t think he knew, I think I always just put it on my tab because I wanted to make sure he was getting something too, salmon or sushi.
“So we didn’t talk a lot, but I had a great relationship. We’d still like chat and I was so excited to have him back, and gosh, even like…If you remember when he came back, everyone was fired up about that. Everybody.
“So when I watched it, just from my sitting there, I was not… there were some people texting me, I remember somebody texting me ‘Man, you’re the smartest guy in the room,’ and I wanted to write back like, ‘F you, man.’ I don’t feel that way. I feel this thing we built got damaged, and I’m not putting any blame on anybody. Sorry, I’m super Switzerland in this moment.
“I’m not putting any blame on anybody, but I just hated seeing that, because as the company grows, and I hope it continues to grow, I hope people remember the mission in the first place, why we were there. And if you bring in people who don’t know the mission, then things like that can happen. And I’m not saying he didn’t know the mission or anything of that nature, but I was just bummed out. That’s how I felt, I was bummed out.”
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please credit Ariel Helwani and link back to this article with a h/t to Inside the Ropes.