Jack Perry addresses his hiatus from wrestling following backstage incident with CM Punk
CM Punk and Jack Perry were suspended by AEW due to their backstage altercation at the 2023 All In PPV event. Punk ended up being fired from the company while Perry was off television for several months.
While speaking to Renee Paquette, Perry addressed his hiatus from wrestling following the incident with Punk…
“I think I feel like I’ve grown a lot from it. Yeah. But I feel like the growth came from a lot of—I feel like it sounds dramatic to say pain, but it was not the nicest of times. I think it really freed me in a lot of ways. It’s kind of—it’s like before all that feels like almost another lifetime at this point to me. And I think back to how I felt before that, and I think a big thing I had was like, I just really—this sounds silly—but I just wanted everyone to like me.
I was new to being on TV, and this was my dream job that I’d been dreaming about since I was a kid. I just wanted to do it perfectly, and I wanted everyone to like me.
It’s something I don’t worry about in my real life so much. But this was different. It felt like something I wanted to micromanage and make perfect and have it be the dream that I had had.
So then when I would come up short of that, it was very disappointing.
Coming up short of anything sucks, but then doing it in such a public way—and then there are a million people telling you you’re a piece of sh*t and whatever—it’s hard.
And I think through all that, I finally realized there are some people who are never going to like me no matter what I do.
And in a way that was really freeing, because then I was like, well, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. What do I want to do?
I think at a certain point things just happened, and it got amplified by like a hundred times. I realized there are people here that I’m never going to win over or win back or whatever it is. The people who really matter to me, I think I’m good with. But I don’t know—a little controversy is fun too.
It’s funny, because if you had gone back ten years ago and shown me a crystal ball and said this is all going to happen, I would have been like, ‘Are you serious?’ But now, it kind of is what it is. And I think as much as some people would probably want me to, I wouldn’t change anything.”
“I mean, at the time when it was happening, it all felt terrible. But I think it sort of forced me to realize things that are bigger life things.”