Cody Rhodes Discusses AEW Negotiations With CM Punk, Says They Never Got Too Serious

In an interview with talkSPORT, Cody Rhodes discussed Konnan’s recent comments on his podcast that the reason AEW wasn’t able to sign CM Punk was because Punk asked for a massive amount of money. Cody confirmed that Punk did ask for a lot of money, but that he thinks it isn’t about the money with Punk, noting that they continue to have a good relationship with him and perhaps something will work out in the future. Highlights are below.

On CM Punk asking for a lot of money from AEW: “As far as the CM Punk negotiations go, everyone heard the famous ‘he got a text from us’. Yeah, of course there were negotiations and he did ask for a great amount of money and Punk is worth a great deal of money. But you also have to – and this isn’t speaking to Punk specifically, this is speaking to recruitment and what we’ve learned in wrestling in general – a lot of people think ‘these wrestlers are running this wrestling company’. These wrestlers are doing everything they can to run the creative, the brand and the marketing and things, but there are some very smart and fiscally conservative people who surround us and flank us because this isn’t my money. At all.”

On how he doesn’t think negotiations with Punk ever got too serious: “And I don’t want a situation that happened with WCW or Jim Crockett promotions where we think we’re flying so high that we can do anything. No – this is a business. And we have to turn a profit. The fact we were able to turn a profit as a company within only two years of being alive, very few other companies within wrestling – it’s real limited, you can count on one hand who’s been able to do that versus who has bled money – but in that situation the negotiations, I don’t think they ever got too serious.

On how he has a good relationship with Punk: “Doesn’t mean they won’t one day, but they never got entirely too serious. I think there is a good relationship there. I think I have a good relationship with Phil, I believe Tony does too and I’m not sure really when it comes to him, it’s not so much about the money. It’s about are you interested in doing this?

On how AEW is willing to spend on guys who have the passion: “Because the price tag becomes a lot more justifiable if you’re genuinely interested in what we’re doing at the high speed we’re doing it. And again, that’s not even specific to him, just in general, if the passion is not there, the money is not there.”