Dax Harwood on Brawl Out and a possible future AEW with CM Punk & The Elite

Dax Harwood’s new podcast, FTR with Dax Harwood, will not officially launch until Thursday (December 29). But Harwood used AdFreeShows’ announcement of his existence to fuel speculation about his future, and now he’s making headlines again with pre-release quotes from the first episode, simply titled “Punk.”

Of the topics teased in this tweet (which by many accounts meant Harwood was going to interview Punk, not just talk about him…workers go to work), we still haven’t heard much about how Dax and Punk met, or anything else on the creepy “Colt” topic. But let’s look at the aftermath of Hangman Page’s infamous “Workers’ Rights” promo that simmered all of Punk’s simmering tensions with The Elite:

“After the promotional segment, I went to Punk and said, ‘That was really good, that was a great segment.’ They made the fans react. Sometimes it’s hard to get fans to react to a babyface-babyface match. I thought it was a great segment. He was like, ‘Ahhh, I have some feelings about this.’ I had no idea there was anything wrong or sideways or anything like that.

When asked by his co-host Matt Koon if Page looks like someone who would snap at someone during a verbal exchange, Sax replied:

“To be honest, I don’t know Adam Page very well, we worked together once in North Carolina Indies. I don’t know him very well, but I don’t think so and I didn’t think so. I had no idea about him. He is a father, he loves his wife, he just had a new baby, he is always kind and polite to me. We have always talked and get along well. Even after the disagreements we had with the Young Bucks, he and I still talked and got along great.

Rumors circulated, heading towards All out, people knew that Punk’s melee appearance after the show would cause a stir. Harwood says he didn’t think Punk was any worse at AEW before the Labor Day PPV:

Not at all. Punk was still so cheerful and happy to be in the wrestling business. Actually, when they were going to put the belt on him, he told me he didn’t want the belt. He said, ‘I just want to have fun,’ but he understood that Tony putting the belt on him would put AEW in a better light.” He took it, a little reluctantly, but took the belt.

“At the time, he carried me, Cash [Wheeler]maximum [MJF], Wardlow, Hobbs, I miss so many guys, he took us out to eat, he always paid. She bought all the girls in the locker room Starbucks gift cards and asked one of the girls to hand them out, anonymously, and she didn’t say who they were from, but it was from her, just because she loved the vibe and loved being there. He also liked the work the girls were doing. He thought they were kicking their ass trying to get the attention of WWE’s women’s division.

He confirms that he and his FTR partner Cash Wheeler had left the NOW Arena at the time of the melee and ensuing fight, but says he got a call from Punk afterward:

“All the guys in the locker room were drinking and having fun, and we were hugging, I have a picture of me and Jay Lethal on the floor together laughing. I had my wife and daughter there, Cash had his girlfriend. It was a good time. After our game was over I took a shower, had a couple drinks with the guys real quick, grabbed my girls and went back to the hotel.

“I was laying in bed and got a text from one of the wrestlers saying, ‘Is this shit real? I had no idea what he was talking about. Soon after I got a call from my friend CM Punk and he told me what happened. I said, ‘You’re lying to me man. There’s no way that happened. He was covered in blood from the match. He FaceTimed me, it was that night. He said, ‘I want you to know you’re going to hear some stuff. I want you to hear it from me. me. That’s what happened.’ I said, ‘Dude, are you okay? Do you need anything? I’ll come right over to help you, clean you up. “No, no, it’s okay, it’s calmed down, we’re fine. That’s where I first heard about it. »

Reports and rumors about what happened between Punk & Ace Steel and Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks were all over the place, and even getting first-hand testimony from his friend, Dax doesn’t claim to know the exact truth:

“Evidently I wasn’t there. What I perceive to be God is the only person who truly knows the truth. Everyone will have their own version in their heads. We’ve all done it before, we’ve done what we perceive to be the truth. What I have hear it being reported, there are elements of truth, but there are also things that make me cringe. We seem to only get part of the story or what this reporter wants to publish, if he has a bias or a grudge against one of the leave, that’s exactly how I felt.

“I also knew I didn’t know the whole story. I’ve also heard that the stories I’ve heard from some people, I don’t think they would outright lie to me. I think there are elements of truth, but I also think some fans read too much into it and think they should just let what happened happen and die. When all is said and done, I can’t tell you that I know 100% of the truth and I can’t tell you that the reporter’s account is 100% of the truth. I know what I perceive to be the truth and from the things I’ve read and heard there is partial truth and partial things that are a little bit exaggerated.

Do you think Punk could return to the AEW fold? He doesn’t pretend to have an answer, but he does give a speech to his colleagues that fits what many fans would like to see happen:

“I can tell you what I hope for, because I don’t know. Everyone knows the legality of the situation and no one really expresses what will happen, what happened and what won’t happen. I can tell you, all I can be honest, I can only tell you what I know and what I feel I know, I hope you come back. I think AEW should have the Young Bucks in their locker room. AEW should have Kenny Omega in the locker room. I know I think AEW should have CM Punk in the locker room. With these four entities, it makes our roster of talent much deeper and better. These are four guys who want to be the best. Regardless of what each of us personally thinks, I know we all want to be the best, and I know we all want the best for pro wrestling. He has given us a life that we could never otherwise have.

“This is my plea for the four boys. Please find a way to make it work. If we can make this work, we can set the future of wrestling for a long time, and we can change the course of wrestling for a long time. If you think about it, selflessly, we will do this for 20-30 years so that boys and girls can make a living.

It makes a lot of sense, but it would take egos – and lawyers – to step out of the way.

We’ll see if that happens down the road. We’ll find out what else Harwood could have said on the matter (“Colt”) during the first episode of FTR with Dax Harwood officially drops later.

Transcript via Fighter