WWE Hall of Famer “Road Dogg” Brian James and new WWE Vice President of Live Events, recently discussed the locker room reputation that former WWE star and current AEW star CM Punk had.
On his “Oh… You Didn’t Know” podcast, James made it clear that, although he wasn’t at the time a member of WWE’s inner circle and didn’t have complete knowledge of Punk’s decision to leave the company prior to WrestleMania 30 in 2014, he was aware of Punk’s standing in the locker room.
“Look, I just remember he was kind of difficult to work with. And I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. I hadn’t been there that long, and I wasn’t in the inner circle. If this had happened three years later, I would have probably known a lot more of what was going on behind the scenes. So, I didn’t really know what was going on with him, but I know he was hard to deal with,” James said.
In 2014, Punk took part in a few six-man tag team matches with James and Billy Gunn as The New Age Outlaws, a legendary tag team. James said that as long as they got their spots off, they didn’t have any problems with Punk in the ring, but he added that there might have been professional rather than personal reasons for Punk to leave.
“Maybe that, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that that’s why it was. It wasn’t personal issues, but there were professional issues. Compared to how I and his relationship, he wouldn’t have talked to me about it. So, and it was just, me and Billy just kind of looked at each other, like, Woah, what do we do here? So, we did the best we could to do our stuff around him and let him be him, and we’ll be us, and you know how that worked out,” James continued.
On last night’s AEW Dynamite, Punk was defeated by Jon Moxley for the Undisputed AEW World Title, but a rematch is rumored for AEW All Out on September 4. On the same day that AEW President Tony Khan addressed the reports of Punk’s chemistry with Adam Page, Punk recently addressed rumors of unhappiness in the company.
