Bully Ray Weighs In On Situation Between WWE's CM Punk & AEW's Hangman Adam Page
The aftermath of CM Punk's appearance on Ariel Helwani's "The MMA Hour" earlier this week continues, with "Busted Open Radio's" Bully Ray now weighing in on Punk's version of the story behind the infamous promo between he and AEW's "Hangman" Adam Page that led to so much drama within the company and, ultimately, Punk's exit from it.
In the interview with Helwani, Punk explained that he and Page sat down to lay out their exchange at the go-home episode of "AEW Dynamite" ahead of time, agreeing on who would say what, so on, and so forth, but that Page ditched all of that and instead set out to tear into Punk, insinuating that he got a friend (Colt Cabana) fired and that Page was taking it upon himself to protect the locker room from Punk moving forward.
That sort of about-face, Bully Ray said, can seriously throw off a wrestler in such a situation.
"These guys sit down, they plan out their verbiage to work together," he said. "All of a sudden, you get to the ring and one guy decides to take everything that was agreed upon and throw it out the window. That's called going into business for yourself. If it all went down the way Punk is explaining on the interview with Ariel, then yes, Hangman has gone into business for himself, or any wrestler who does that has gone into business for themselves."
How it should have been done
"Now [Punk's] mind is racing, because the first instinct is, 'This guy is shooting on me,'" Bully Ray continued, putting himself in Punk's shoes. "Shooting on somebody doesn't only come in the form of physical in the ring. It can come in the form of on the microphone with your verbiage. Just like John Cena shot on The Rock and called him out for the verbiage on the wrist," he added, referring to a notorious 2012 episode of "WWE Raw" during the Cena-Rock rivalry. "That's shooting on somebody. That's going into business for yourself. And that's why The Rock got so pissed, because you kind of went someplace that there's an unwritten rule that we don't go near."
Bully went on to say that if Page, or anyone, didn't want to lay anything out ahead of time or address personal issues privately, instead preferring to go unscripted in the ring, that's fine, they can do that. He also leaned on another classic example of two adversaries going about it that way, all in the name of business.
"Before the Invasion angle, Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon had an in-ring," Bully explained. "Paul went to Vince, 'What would you like me to say?' [and] Vince told Paul Heyman to basically, 'Shoot on me. Say whatever you want. I don't care. I'm not taking it personally. I just need you to sell me a ticket.'"
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.