Ricky Starks talks his current feud with CM Punk.
On the August 5 episode of AEW Collision, Ricky Starks will face CM Punk in a match for the "real" AEW World Championship. This match is the next part of the rivalry between Starks and Punk, a feud that has began to heat up in recent weeks, especially after Starks defeated Punk in the finals of the Owen Hart Cup Tournament back in July.
In a new interview with Alicia Atout, Starks praised his current feud with Punk, noting that he has a renewed sense of himself. Starks also stated that he prefers to wrestle people that are way better than him, rather than to wrestle people at the same level as him.
“It’s been really good for me. I feel like I have a renewed sense of myself, and I have a renewed sense of something of substance type of thing. I remember back then, when he had all these [matches], he was facing Hobbs and all these other people. I was like, damn, what about me? I did feel some type of way because in my mind, it is great to wrestle somebody with that type of experience. I don’t think people realize Punk is one of the few guys that have gone from the independent of the old, went through the transition of WWE and that whole system, then went into the other transition of when it was really corporate WWE, and now he’s here. He’s one of the very few, him, Bryan [Danielson], he’s one of the very few, people like that, that have gone through that system, and they know, they’ve seen all those different phases of wrestling. So it’s great to have because iron sharpens iron. I think being in there with Punk obviously makes me a better person because in my head, there’s a lot of pressure that I put on myself to step up to the plate, so to speak. As they say on the Internet, it’s sink or swim, and I’ve been swimming quite a bit. So it’s great, it really is. These are things that are needed. It’s cool to wrestle someone that’s on the same level as me, I don’t want that. I want to wrestle someone that is way better than me, that is beyond my years, and I feel like everybody should strive for that. I want to wrestle someone that could definitely eat my lunch. I would love that. I would want to be on the mic against someone that could destroy me. Let’s do it. Let’s see how that goes."
Fightful will have full coverage of the August 5 episode of AEW Collision as it airs. Fans can see a updated lineup for the event here.
Elsewhere in the interview, Starks said that him and MJF have clashed over their sense of style. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
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