8 months ago
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AEW
In the two years that CM Punk spent in AEW, he made his fair share of enemies. However, no one truly hated the Straight Edge star more than Eddie Kingston. The bad blood between the two men stemmed from their early days on the indies, where Punk called Kingston a "bum" for not living up to his full potential, something that has stayed consistent in AEW through Kingston's feuds with Bryan Danielson and Claudio Castagnoli. Speaking with "Inside the Ropes," Kingston touched on his feud with Punk and stated there was nothing fake about the hatred.
"That whole thing was reality, there's your reality TV," Kingston said. "I don't like him and he don't like me, that's it. I don't wish him good, I don't wish him bad, I don't give a f**k about the guy and that's it. Even when he was part of our locker room, I didn't give a f**k about him unless I had to fight him, just like he doesn't care about me. I'm not the hard a** here, he doesn't give two s**ts about me either, and that's it."
The two men had a series of face-offs in late 2021, culminating in their war at that year's Full Gear, which resulted in Punk picking up the victory. After the match, Punk extended his hand to Kingston as a show of respect, which Kingston refused. However, that throughline of showing respect has cropped up a number of times in Kingston's feuds since 2021, with his pay-per-view matches with Danielson and Chris Jericho having the added stipulation of a mandatory handshake if Kingston won, which he did on both occasions.
Please credit "Inside the Ropes" when using quote from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
