Former AEW World Tag Team Champion Ricky Starks has reflected on working with former AEW World Champion CM Punk.
During his final stint with the company on AEW Collision, CM Punk feuded with Ricky Starks over the Real World Championship. However, Punk’s contract with All Elite Wrestling was terminated after he got into a backstage altercation with Jack Perry at AEW All In London.
Punk has since returned to WWE, while Starks went on to win the AEW World Tag Team Championships with Big Bill.
Speaking with WhatCulture Wrestling, Ricky Starks was asked to comment on working with CM Punk and other great minds on the AEW roster. He answered:
“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.”
“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,”
Highlighting how important Punk was to his run on AEW Collision in those early months, Ricky said:
“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.’”
“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 fuck 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,”
Ricky Starks also confirmed he is not injured amid his current in-ring absence from AEW elsewhere in the interview, which you can read here.
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