In August 2023, Ryan Nemeth was sent home from AEW Collision following a confrontation with CM Punk over a tweet he had made.
At the time, Nemeth called Punk “the softest man alive” after the latter’s return promo on the premiere episode of AEW Collision in which he called The Elite “soft.”
On a recent edition of the “Wrestle Binge” podcast, Nemeth explained that his tweet was in character and the remark was reasonable considering his heel persona.
He said, “There are some things I can talk about and some things I can’t talk about. I can very happily tell you about my tweet. The top good guy on the TV show was missing for eight months due to what I was told was a triceps injury, right. On his very first night back, he, in character, called someone else soft. I thought, ‘Well, I’m a heel, this is a babyface, we both work for the same wrestling company. He gets injured more than anyone who has ever wrestled, and on his very first night back, in character, called someone else soft.’ I thought, ‘What else am I supposed to do? Of course I must respond to this. In character,’ and I did. Anything beyond that, I’m probably not safely able to talk about at this time. I think that’s a very reasonable thing for a bad guy heel to say in response to a heroic babyface who seemed to be a little hypocritical. Is that fair?”
