"The spirit was gone" - Cody Rhodes criticizes former AEW World Champion CM Punk for his rant against The Elite

Cody Rhodes shocked the wrestling world by returning to WWE at last year's WrestleMania as Seth Rollins' mystery opponent. CM Punk had possibly the most memorable wrestling return of all time in AEW.

The American Nightmare went on to defeat The Visionary three times in a row before suffering a torn triceps while training for WWE Hell in a Cell 2022. Before returning to the company, Cody was an EVP of All Elite Wrestling and captured the TNT Championship a couple of times in the promotion.

CM Punk made his triumphant return to wrestling in AEW and fizzled out spectacularly. The two-time AEW World Champion (without a single title defense) went on a profanity-laced rant following All Out 2022 and has not been seen on AEW TV since.

Speaking with Ariel Helwani on the MMA Hour, former AEW EVP Cody Rhodes criticized Punk for harming something he put a lot of effort into building with Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks:

“I’m not putting any blame on anybody, but I just hated seeing that. Because, as the company grows, and I hope it continues to grow, I hope people remember the mission in the first place. Why we were there. And if you bring in people that don’t know the mission, things like that can happen. And I’m not saying he [Punk] didn’t know the mission or anything of that nature, but I was just bummed out."

Cody Rhodes added that he was bummed when he saw CM Punk's rant because that is not the vision he and The Elite had for AEW:

“No heat on Punk, no heat on Matt, Nick, Kenny or Tony. I was just bummed out when I saw it. That’s not how we envisioned it. If you were at ALL IN... the spirit of ALL IN. If you ever lose the spirit, you’re lost. And I think the spirit was gone in that moment. Doesn’t mean you can’t get it back, but it was just a bummer.” [H/T: Cageside Seats]

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WWE Superstar Cody Rhodes on the negative impact of CM Punk's comments

Cody Rhodes noted that there are a lot of people that work at All Elite Wrestling and CM Punk's rant impacted all of them.

The American Nightmare said that there are roughly 1,000 people employed by AEW and that he doesn't believe CM Punk's comments were helpful:

“Plus, there’s not as many jobs in wrestling as people think. There’s about a thousand people who work there, structurally, infrastructure, and talent. I’m proud of them, and I want to make sure they’re able to feed their families. And that was a situation that was so big, and heavy — I don’t think it was helpful, right? And I don’t know, maybe you can make it helpful, maybe you can do something with it? But that’s how I felt." [H/T: Cageside Seats]

All Elite Wrestling has since recovered from CM Punk's ill-timed rant. Cody Rhodes is having the best run of his career and has already punched his ticket to the main event of WrestleMania 39. Time will tell if Punk ever returns to wrestling and contributes to AEW's success in the future.

Would you like to see CM Punk return to WWE? Sound off in the comments section below.