On the March 23 episode of AEW Dynamite, CM Punk battled Dax Harwood in singles competition.
Harwood is best known for his tag team acumen alongside Cash Wheeler, but has had a handful of singles bouts that left fans wanting more during his AEW run. The match was well-received by fans and peers, earning Dax even more praise for his singles work.
Speaking to Mike Johnson at PWInsider, Harwood reflected on the bout.
"I take professional wrestling way too seriously. That's because it is my livelihood and how I feed my family. It has saved my life many times over. That's a shoot, that's real. Ultimately, I want to give back to professional wrestling. As a tag team, Cash and myself have done that time and time again. That's a little bat on the back to us. Wednesday night was something...I don't like giving the magic away too much, but it was something I was extremely proud of for a lot of different reasons. The match, ooff, just talking about it gets me a little emotional because of how much it meant to me. I wanted to impress Bret and I wanted him to say, 'this is the kind of wrestling I look forward to and I want to put out.' I also want fans today to say, 'holy shit, that was a different kind of match than I'm used to and I liked it.' On top of that, I wanted the boys and girls in the back to watch the match and say, 'this is a different approach to what I thought I knew and maybe we can implore some of those tactics in our matches as well.' The match, sentimentally, meant a lot to me. When I got to the back, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, a future Hall of Famer, came up to me and said, 'you are the perfect professional wrestler and, I've never said this before in my career, but that was the perfect professional wrestling match.' That's all the validation I needed. Bret Hart texted me before the match and said, 'I cannot wait to watch this match.' That was pretty cool too," he said.
Punk was victorious in the bout, forcing Harwood to tap out with the Anaconda Vice.
Dax's FTR partner Cash weighed in on the contest saying, "I just want to say, the match was incredible and I hope that, not just aspiring wrestlers, but anyone in wrestling that wants to get better and learn, I hope they watch that match because it was that good. Regal gave the advice the other day, 'the best wrestling matches are when the two or four wrestlers are trying to outsell the other.' Both guys sold their asses off the whole match and made everything mean something. Even the superplex, they built for that for over two minutes instead of doing 13 things off the top rope and getting up from all of them to move on to the next. They tried to outsell each other and the match was better because of it. That's why people should go back, watch, and understand that it's not about just getting your shit in."
FTR were jeered by Austin & Colten Gunn after the bout, setting up a tag team match between the two teams on the March 30 episode of AEW Dynamite.
Fans can check out the current lineup for Wednesday's AEW Dynamite by clicking here.
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