Stokely Hathaway appeared on The Sessions with Renee Paquette this week and revealed AEW creative plans for CM Punk and The Firm, which likely will never happen due to Punk’s status with AEW.
Hathaway revealed that there were post-All Out plans for Punk to feud with The Firm following his AEW World Title win over Jon Moxley at the pay-per-view. The storyline never materialized due to the backstage fight at All Out, and Punk’s injury. Hathaway revealed that Punk wanted to work with him.
“Who we were supposed to directly feud with is no longer in the company,” Hathaway said. “That is one thing I was looking forward to because I was hand chosen for that role. I’m just going to say it: I don’t know the specifics, if people are choosing sides or whatever, but for me, the fact that CM Punk said, ‘Hey, I want to work with this guy,’ that holds a lot of weight and means a lot, regardless of what has happened, what will happen.”
Hathaway noted that when plans changed, everything has to be re-written on the fly as this impacted the original purpose of The Firm.
“Everyone in the group is trying to do their best and we’re trying to figure out how to make this work because the original purpose isn’t the purpose anymore, so it’s like, what do you do?,” Hathaway explained. “Things are slowly gearing up; it’s just going to take a few weeks. With the way wrestling is nowadays, I get it. First impressions are everything, but it’s a little bit difficult to change people’s minds. Most people don’t want to see Picasso work on his painting — they just want to see the sh*t done. That’s the phase we’re in. We’re working on it, but people don’t want to see it worked on. They want to see the finished product.”
Punk’s AEW status remains up in the air as of this writing. There have been reports of a possible buy-out of his contract, but that has not been confirmed. Former AEW Producer Ace Steel was released from the company due to his involvement in the All Out fight, while AEW Executive Vice Presidents Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks recently returned from a lengthy suspension.
Below is the full interview with Hathaway:
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(H/T to F4W for the quotes)
