In 2019, AEW was described by Cody Rhodes as the Ellis Island of Professional Wrestling,

and for a time, it was. Vince McMahon's WWE was an oppressive, wildly erratic place.

Basically, in that era, WWE created an environment in which a wrestler was almost lucky if they

got to perform slop. AEW marketed itself as WWE's exact antithesis, literally a utopia, in contrast to a

dystopia. The platform was there for you to become one of the absolute best wrestlers in the world

and perform in some of the best matches ever. Every wrestling promotion undergoes a decline at some

point or another. A.W. was no different. In fact, by 2024, the inverse was true. At some

point, AW to some was decidedly not a utopia, and at times it showed. Now, there's a lot

of inference here based on body language, social media posts, and reporting. Sometimes you just

have to look at the clues. I'm Scott from Whatculture.com, and these are eight

wrestlers that visibly hated working for AW. Number eight, CM Punk. C.M. Punk has outright stated that he did not enjoy the best of times in all elite wrestling. Summising that a lot of people no longer wanted him in the locker room, he revealed to Ariel Helwani that he'd asked to leave in the wake of brawlout. The self-destruction of

CM Punk and AW is a long, knotty tale. But to summarize more briefly, CM Punk joined AW. Punk had so

much fun early in the run that people accused him of going soft. He then produced career

best-level work. Almost immediately after this, Revolution 2022, enemy Colt Cabana was removed

from his post as producer, replaced by friend A. Stee, enemy Colt Cabana was removed from his post as producer,

replaced by friend Ace Steel. Colt Cabana sympathizers felt like this wasn't a coincidence,

most infamously Hangman Page, who cut an unsolicited shoot promo on Punk. C.M. Punk held his

nerve, but gave Paige a receipt months later. He then burnt the company to the ground at the

all-out press conference,

for which he was suspended. Punk went along with the untenable idea for collision, which he himself

hardly helped. His misery festered and spilled all over around Jack Perry's throat, for which

he was terminated with cause. The fascinating stories only started to leak in late August

...