WWE: Unreal Producer Says CM Punk & AJ Lee Were ‘Incredible’ To Work With

Michael Flynn, a producer on WWE: Unreal, says that CM Punk and AJ Lee were amazing to work with on season three of the show. Punk was a feature part of the show’s first season, and he and Lee were both a focus of season three which featured a look at Lee’s return as well as their beloved dog Larry passing away.

Flynn was asked in his interview with Hard Rock Bet about their experience working with Lee and Punk. He noted season three was a “full circle” experience after covering Punk’s return in season one. You can see highlights below:

On Working With Punk On the Show:

“They are both incredible. I’ll start with Punk first because he has been one of our main characters—if not our main character—since season one. In season one, episode one, we tell the story of his past and how he was this young kid in WWE who, self-admittedly, knew he was a superstar and would butt heads with creative, literally walked out of the company, was gone for, I want to say, almost 10 years in different organizations, became this older, more learned person, and came back to that same creative person he had butted heads with. They got together, reconciled all of their differences, and then it came to this great return. He calls it the greatest return in WWE history.

“Still to this day, my favorite episode of the entire series is that episode one, because we spend all this time talking about this badass guy who left the company and then came back older. Then he’s getting ready for the main event, and he has this brilliant talking-head interview where he says he suffers from what he calls ‘anticipatory anxiety.’ I love that because that’s the whole purpose of what we try to do—to get behind the scenes and see the vulnerability and the people behind these characters. For someone like that, who we’ve just established as this badass who has wrestled hundreds, if not thousands, of matches in his life, to still have anxiety as he approaches that main event is mind-blowing to me. I love it, and I love that he was vulnerable with us and open with us to tell that story. Really, he set the tone for being that superstar who was open with us, and now, in the two seasons that have happened since then, we’ve had plenty of other people sign on and help tell their stories.”

On Working With Punk & AJ Lee On Season Three:

“Then, to come full circle this year and see him talk about his wife rejoining the company and the change that she has helped bring to the company—and then, like you said, going through the death of Larry, which they admit on the show… They’re a very private couple. It’s just the two of them and their dog. To go through that on TV with us and our cameras was amazing. Then, at the end of episode five, he gets through a WrestleMania main event and is still talking about how he feels vindicated. For 15 years, he felt like this should have been happening, but he’s proud that it’s happening now. He says he’s the best wrestler at age 47, and next year he’ll be the best wrestler at age 48.

“So he has been incredible to cover. AJ Lee this year was not somebody we knew was coming back or ever envisioned coming back. I think that’s the story we tell—that nobody knew this would ever be a possibility. To see her come back in real time as we were filming it, and the pop that she got, and the reaction from the fans… Triple H says there were girls cheering in the crowd who couldn’t have even been born when she last appeared in a WWE ring. Then to hear her talk about growing up in the early 2000s—I think she says she was an Attitude Era kid—the women wrestlers then did not get the opportunities that they get today.

“They weren’t necessarily put in the best situations or given the types of matches that we would never have today. She came in towards the end of that and helped spin that wheel forward, like she says, not only to get the same respect, but also to get paid the same way that the men did. Again, they’re a couple who give amazing talking-head interviews. She has this amazing line where she mentions that the change you fight for is not something you expect to experience yourself. Being able to come back 10 years later and actually see the path she helped pave—her husband being there, women being given longer matches with legitimate female superstars—is great. I think she calls it a ‘badass moment.’ They’ve both been incredible to work with and deal with, and we’re happy they’re leading this season.”