Samoa Joe on Backstage Incident at AEW All In, If CM Punk Is Misunderstood

– During a recent interview with The New York Post, AEW wrestler and ROH TV Champion Samoa Joe discussed the backstage incident that took place AEW All In London at Wembley Stadium last night. The incident took place before CM Punk was going out for his match against Joe at the start of the pay-per-view broadcast. Joe provided his perspective of the incident. Below are some highlights:

Samoa Joe on if anything in the media is being misunderstood about CM Punk: “I’d imagine there are tons of things that are misunderstood or portrayed about him. Now, what those things are it’s who’s representing in what way. I can’t really give you a blanket statement as far as what those things are. For the most part, our relationship has been very, especially for these years, has been very non-wrestling related. It’s just been extraneous stuff outside of the world of wrestling and talking about life stuff.”

Joe on his match with Punk at All In: “A tremendous amount. I’ve always enjoyed the many minutes I’ve spent in the ring with Punk and to be able to revisit that at this point in our careers was a big thing for us both personally. It was good to get back in there and scrap around with him a bit and entertain a ton of people in the process.”

On what’s been portrayed in the media regarding the incident: “For the most part, I haven’t read what’s been portrayed. There’s been so much said. I’m not the one to go out there and try to debunk everything. I know we had the initial incident. Everybody rallied. Everybody got together. Got their heads together and lined up and got ready to do the show and we went out there and we did the show.”

On what the focus was after the incident: “That really was the focus at that point in time. We got a massive show to do and we got fans out there rabid to see that happen. So it’s important that we step up and do it and it’s important that we did and I was proud to be a part of that.”

On if the incident was as intense as Tony Khan described it: “That’s up to whoever perceived it. I’m used to that environment. Those things don’t seem very intense to me, but it could be something crazy intense to someone else. I wasn’t really affected by the moment. I was more focused on getting the show back on track and getting us going because it was bell time.”

AEW terminated CM Punk’s contracts with the company “with cause” due to the incident at AEW All In. Samoa Joe is set to face MJF later this week at AEW Dynamite Grand Slam for the AEW World Championship. The event is being held on Wednesday, September 20 at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York. It will be broadcast live on TBS at 8:00 pm EST.