Ken Anderson, also known as Mr. Kennedy in WWE, initially had issues with CM Punk when they both worked on the independent wrestling scene.
Speaking to Steve Fall on The Ten Out podcast, Anderson reflected on his bitter relationship with Punk during their early days on the independent circuit. The former Mr. Kennedy eventually grew to love Punk and befriended him when they were both in WWE.
Anderson also weighed in on Punk’s AEW status and whether the Second City Saint would ever return to the squared circle.
Punk’s future in the pro wrestling business has been up in the air following his backstage altercation with The Elite post-AEW All Out 2022.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On if he thinks Punk will return to AEW: “I don’t know. I’m not sure, and I don’t even want to — like I really, I haven’t paid too much attention to it. I know that it happened, I saw clips of it when it happened. And I guess I don’t know enough about the circumstances surrounding it to like even make an informed decision. I just — you know, hopefully everybody can get past it. And I think he’s good for the business. He’s obviously — I think that night, as he alluded to, they did some record numbers at AEW I believe, right?”
Ken Anderson on hating Punk at first: “I hated CM Punk for a while when I was on the independents. There was a wrestling company called IWA Mid-South, run by Ian Rotten… and it was kind of a big deal, he did this big show every year called the Ted Petty Invitational Tournament. It was called something before that, but when Ted Petty died they renamed it to Ted Petty Invitational. And it was like, all the up-and-coming indy guys, indy stars would compete. So Austin Aries and I got booked on this thing, it’s our first big deal that we’re doing. We go all the way down there, we were wrestling each other. And we have a what we thought was a good match, it was actually the first time I ever did the the Finley Roll off the second rope. He was the first person I ever did it to, and incidentally, like I didn’t do it until I got to WWE again, which was years later. For some reason I just didn’t keep doing it.
“But we’ve had what we thought was a solid match, and you can’t wait to get the tape, right? So we can watch it at the time, tape trading was a huge thing and IWA Mid-South tapes were gold. I finally got a copy of this tape, would pop it in. Watching it, and it was CM Punk, Dave Prazak, and Ace Steele on commentary, and they were burying us. It felt like like they were burying us like that. And it wasn’t in character, it was like just kind of taking the piss at us.”
On Punk apologizing for it: “I remember like, I didn’t like him, I didn’t like him, I was pissed at him about that. And then I bumped into him on a show, we were booked on a show together. And I just pulled him aside. I was like, ‘Hey man can I talk to you?’ And then I brought it up, you know, I said, ‘What, do we have heat or something like that? What the f**k, man?’ And I remember, he gave me the most sincere, heartfelt apology. It wasn’t like, ‘Well I was just in character.’ He was like, ‘I’m really sorry, it was — I shouldn’t have done that.’ And we were cool, we were cool.”
Ken Anderson on making friends with Punk in WWE: “And then I remember, I still sort of like [had issues], you know, it wasn’t like all was forgiven in that instant. So then I had gotten called up on the road for WWE, out of OVW. Paul Heyman was writing TV there. And I remember, Paul really loved CM Punk. And I was like, I was Paul’s baby for that couple months before he got me out the door, he got me on TV. And then you know, Punk was the next guy that he focused on, and I didn’t like it. And I remember one time Paul took me and Punk out for sushi one night. And we just sat down and just talked. And I’ve loved them ever since. Like, you know, sometimes brothers gotta fight. But yeah, Paul brought us together. And we ended up, we rode together a little bit when we were both at WWE.”
