Stokely Hathaway Says The Firm Was Supposed To Work With CM Punk, Punk Wanted To Work With Stokely
Plans changed for The Firm.
At AEW All Out, MJF return to the company, winning the Casino Ladder match after he was handed the chip from Stokely Hathaway. MJF’s return also marked the formation of The Firm, a group put together by Stokely in the weeks leading up to AEW All Out that consisted of Ethan Page, The Gunn Club (Austin & Colten Gunn), Lee Moriarty, & W. Morrissey.
All Out ended with MJF signaling that he was going after the AEW World Title, which was won by CM Punk in the main event.
Speaking to Renee Paquette on The Sessions, Stokely confirmed that plans were for The Firm to feud with Punk.
“It’s one now,” Stokely said when asked about dealing with confidence lulls. “Everything that was supposed to happen with The Firm did not happen. Back at All Out, and what happened immediately after the pay-per-view, that’s a huge part of it. Who we were supposed to directly feud with is no longer in the company. That is one thing I was looking forward to because I was hand chosen for that role. I’m just going to say it, I don’t know the specifics, if people are choosing sides or whatever, but for me, the fact that CM Punk said, ‘Hey, I want to work with this guy,’ it holds a lot of weight and means a lot, regardless of what has happened, what will happen. When that didn’t happen anymore, it was literally re-writing everything on the fly. Everyone in the group is trying to do their best and we’re trying to figure out how to make this work because the original purpose isn’t the purpose anymore, so it’s like, what do you do? Things are slowly gearing up, it’s just going to take a few weeks. With the way wrestling is nowadays, I get it, first impressions are everything, but it’s a little difficult to change people’s minds. Most people don’t want to see Picasso work on his painting, they just want to see shit done. That’s the phase we’re in, we’re working on it, but people don’t want to see it worked on, they want to see the finished product.”
CM Punk and Ace Steel got into an altercation with Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) after AEW All Out following his comments at the post-show press conference where Punk aired his grievances with The Elite and others in the company.
All parties were suspended and Steel was fired. AEW has not commented on Punk’s status with the promotion. The Elite returned to television at AEW Full Gear.
The Firm, which was originally a stable on retainer for MJF, turned on MJF leading up to Full Gear.
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