AEW star and current FTW champion Ricky Starks recently spoke with Wrestling Inc. about all things pro-wrestling, which included the Absolute One’s thoughts on CM Punk, calling the company’s world champion a true locker room leader. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Compliments CM Punk for being a leader backstage, and how he can always approach Punk”
“Punk is leadership in the truest form. I’ve asked him countless times about advice and things like that backstage and he’s always willing and open to it. And so I do miss him. I feel his absence, for sure, in the locker room. I’m counting the days until he makes his return … Punk has gone through multiple phases. He was around for that indie bit, but then he was around when WWE was bringing in indie guys, and he was in that system, and now he is on the other side of what wrestling is, you know, past that.”
On Punk’s initial feud with Team Taz and how he hopes to still face him one day in AEW:
“That seems to be the pattern of my career, you just fall through the cracks with certain opportunities. Obviously, Punk had the match against Hobbs, you know, then he went right to having issues with MJF, I believe. So it was a matter of timing and that’s no fault of him or me or anyone, really … Once he comes back and he’s fully recovered, I think the day that me and Punk actually have a match, we’ll set the world on fire.”