Ric Flair recently talked about a wide range of issues on his To Be The Man podcast.
He discussed the fight that took place backstage at AEW All Out. During the post-AEW All Out media scrum, CM Punk criticised Colt Cabana, Hangman Page, and all of AEW’s Executive Vice Presidents, Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks.
After the melee that also involved Omega and Ace Steel, Punk got into a fight with Nick and Matt Jackson backstage. Other people reportedly involved were Ace Steel and Omega. The Trios Titles have been stripped from The Elite, and they have been suspended. Punk’s title as World Heavyweight Champion has also been stripped from him.
Flair said, “I’ve been watching it from afar and it’s very entertaining. If it’s entertainment the fans want, it’s entertainment they’re getting. Punk is giving them a lot of it. We just barely got to say hi [in WWE]. I was long gone when all the bad blood seemed to appear between he and Hunter, then the lawsuit with the doctor and all that. I wasn’t aware of any of it and saw it like everybody else on social media. I always sided with Hunter on that because I didn’t know the other guy. But [Punk] is creating excitement now, and if he’s not afraid to say it – I like the way he said, ‘I’ll walk down the hall and be ready.’ That’s Harley Race talking right there. I don’t know if he’s that tough, but I love that. That’s old-time stuff right there. ‘If you got a problem with me, you can find me right there in the building.’ It’s got to be dividing the locker room.’”
Flair also discussed the situation escalating into a backstage brawl, “There’s two kinds of brawls. There’s one where a guy will start a fight because he knows it’s gonna get broken up because there’s so many people around. I would think this is probably the situation with these guys. It’s not like they’re walking into the dressing room to talk to Harley Race or Blackjack [Mulligan]. That would take a lot of thinking and talking and walking to talk to Harley Race about something they didn’t like as an individual. The fact that Punk said, ‘I’m in the building if you want to find me,’ or something like that, I like that. It’s probably not what Tony [Khan] or anybody wants to hear, but if he has the courage to say that and he feels that strongly about somebody, then I don’t blame him for saying it. I like Omega and I like the Young Bucks. They seem like really easy guys to get along with, but I don’t know them that well. For me, it’s how they treat me as an individual, and they treat me great. I was able to be around Kenny when he wrestled [Andrade] in Mexico, and the Young Bucks have been awesome, so I don’t know. CM Punk, I don’t know him. But he said it.”
You can listen to the complete podcast below:
