Jack Perry Opens Up On CM Punk Brawl & Real-Life Relationship With Fellow AEW Star

“Jungle Boy” Jack Perry recently sat down with Renee Paquette for an in-depth, one-on-one interview on the latest installment of the Close Up w/ Renee Paquette digital series.

During the discussion, the Jurassic Express member and AEW veteran reflected on his infamous behind-the-scenes brawl with former AEW star and current WWE World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk, as well as his real-life relationship with fellow AEW star Anna Jay.

Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.

On his growth over the past two years and the incident with CM Punk: “I think, I feel like I’ve grown a lot from it, but I feel like the growth came from a lot of it sounds dramatic to say pain, but it wasn’t the nicest of times, for most of that time. I think it really freed me in a lot of ways. It’s kind of like before all that feels like another lifetime at this point, and I think back to how I felt before that, and I think a big thing I had was like, I just really, it sounds silly, I just wanted everyone to like me. I was new to being on TV. This was my dream job since I was a little kid, and I wanted to do it perfectly, and I wanted everyone to like me, and it’s not something I worry about so much in my real life, but this was different. I kind of wanted to micromanage it and make it perfect. So then when I would come up short of that, it was very disappointing, and I think coming up short of anything sucks, but doing it in such a public way, and then there are a million people telling you you’re a piece of shit or whatever, it’s hard.”

On what he learned from the incident: “I think, through all that, I finally realised there are some people that are never gonna like me no matter what I do, and in a way that was really freeing because then I was like I don’t have to worry about that anymore, what do I wanna do?”

On his relationship with AEW women’s wrestler Anna Jay: “It’s been five years now. She’s actually very good for me in the sense of, she’s always — when I was more obsessive about wrestling and all that — she was always like, ‘We’re at a dinner, can we not do all this right now?’ I mean, still sometimes I can’t turn it off. But she has always been very sort of well-centered and kind of grounded in real life and what’s really [important]. I keep saying ‘what’s really important,’ wrestling is important and I like it and I like being a wrestler. But I laugh sometimes, too. I don’t know why, it’s always in the middle of the night when I wake up to pee. I think about how crazy it is that this is what I do and this is my job. And it feels, like, so serious.”