During the post-AEW Full Gear media scrum, CM Punk commented on his match with Eddie Kingston and the storytelling behind it, why he doesn’t think casual wrestling fans exist anymore, and more. You can check out some highlights from the scrum below:
On his storytelling behind his match with Eddie Kingston: “Pro wrestling man, it’s kind of ironic because we’re characters but we’re not, we’re real people,” Punk said. “What you see from me is what you get, what you see you get from Eddie. I hate pulling the curtain back so to speak but I used to watch professional wrestling all the time and two dudes can get in arguments and then they can fight about it. It doesn’t really have to be deeper than that and if you can get people to relate to that stuff, if you can get people to relate to ‘oh man, I was at a job one time and maybe I didn’t apply myself 100% of the time and there’s that guy in the office that always called me out on it, screw that guy’. Everybody can take a side when you put me and Eddie in the ring. I don’t care what side you take, you’re going to take a side and there’s going to be some situation in your life and past and experiences that as you watch that television, you’re engaged. That’s the whole point, Jerry Lawler used to do it all the damn time.”
On the overlap between WWE and AEW fans and why he doesn’t think there are casual wrestling fans anymore: “I definitely think there’s overlap. I don’t know if everybody who was a WWE fan came over here specifically just to watch me but what I recognize in front of an AEW audience is an audience that I used to wrestle in front of prior to coming to the WWE. They’re wrestling fans yanno and I will never understand the criticism of appealing to your fan base. If this is our fan base, give them what they want and everybody’s happy. Now I understand building a business, people talk about trying to get casuals here, I don’t think there’s casual wrestling fans anymore. My opinion, maybe I’m wrong and maybe somebody at TNT is going to get mad because I’m saying this and am of this opinion but our fans are wrestling fans and we give them wrestling.”
