AEW star Ricky Starks has recently opened up about his experiences working with former AEW star CM Punk. In Punk’s final days with AEW, he was involved in a feud with Ricky Starks. Both stars were scheduled to face each other at the AEW All Out. However, their match got scrapped as Punk was fired from the promotion, and he was replaced by Bryan Danielson.
In an interview with WhatCulture Wrestling, Ricky Starks expressed his thoughts on collaborating with CM Punk and other stars in AEW. He stated, “Dude, it was incredible. Even beyond those guys, who have history, they’re veterans, but don’t forget, the [Young] Bucks are also two guys that I’ve talked to and gone to. They’ve been super helpful and really knowledgeable as well. So it’s not just the veterans. It’s people who are more experienced than I am. So I love all those guys. They’ve been very helpful in that regard. Punk was very instrumental in my presentation on Collision.”
He continued by saying, “There’s a video clip that constantly gets reshared where the pyro is going off and exploding. That was Punk’s idea. Punk has a vision for trying to help out certain people. I do remember a conversation with him where he was like, ‘You know, it’s really up to you to swim. Sink or swim.’ I felt like a lot of stress on myself and pressure on myself to constantly out-perform my last match that I had, just to prove that if he was going to put his name on me, so to speak, or be the one to push for me, then I needed to do my part to make sure that I never let that down.”
AEW star Ricky Starks sets the record straight about CM Punk
During his two-year tenure at AEW, CM Punk may not have made many friends; however, his rival Ricky Starks has shared a positive opinion of him. Speaking in the same interview about his relationship with CM Punk, Starks stated that he doesn’t care what anyone else tells him because Punk was nice to him.
He stated, “Punk was very instrumental in making sure, like, hey, we should try to do something different with this dude. I think Punk is the only one that was closest to really understanding me in that regard, when it came to how I came up in the car [on AEW Collision]. I had that, and then I was one with the bag. Every time he would see my outfit, he laugh and be like, ‘This is perfect.’”
He continued, “So there was a great collaboration going on in that regard. So that’s why I have no issue with Punk. I don’t give a f**k what anybody tries to tell me. I don’t care. He has never done me wrong. You can have your opinions on him and all that, but you shouldn’t vilify someone for thinking differently than you. I will say that til I’m blue in the face. He really went out of his way to really try to make something on that Collision show for me, and I feel like it was working. I feel like we were really onto something. He was a great dude, and I still think Punk is a good dude, in my opinion. He tried to help a lot of us on that show, and I can always be thankful for that.”
While fans hoped to see the feud between CM Punk and Ricky Starks, Punk’s departure led to his return to WWE, while Starks remains with AEW.
