Ryan Nemeth, AEW’s Hollywood Hunk and brother to IWGP Global Champion Nic Nemeth, got in a situation with CM Punk before Punk was fired from AEW in 2023. Nemeth tweeted that Punk was “the softest man alive” after Punk’s return to AEW last summer, leading to the two men having words backstage. In an interview with “Sportskeeda,” Nemeth revealed that he is under a gag order regarding what happened between him and Punk.

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“There’s some things I can talk about and some things I can’t talk about,” Nemeth said, opting to focus on his tweet. “The top good guy on the TV show was missing for eight months after what I was told was a tricep injury and on his first night back called someone ‘soft.’ And so I thought, ‘I’m a heel. This is a babyface. We both work for the same wrestling company. He gets injured more than anyone who’s ever wrestled and his first night back called someone ‘soft,'” Nemeth recounted.

Nemeth felt he had no choice but to throw Punk’s words back at him, leading to the controversial tweet, the reaction to which still confuses Nemeth to this day.

“Anything beyond that I’m not safely able to talk about … but I think that’s a very reasonable thing for a s***-talking bad guy heel to say in response to the heroic babyface who seemed to be a little hypocritical,” Nemeth said.

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Punk was fired from AEW later that year for getting into a backstage fight with Jack Perry, footage of which recently aired on “AEW Dynamite.”