Ricky Starks Hoping For Match With CM Punk

Ricky Starks has seemingly burst through the glass ceiling into the AEW main event scene, with ‘Absolute’ set for a huge AEW World Championship/Dynamite Diamond Ring clash with MJF at Winter is Coming 2022.

Beyond that, though, Starks still has goals he wants to achieve in his career, and told DAZN that he wants to face CM Punk, with Punk originally calling Starks out in a promo in 2021:

“The Punk thing helped, him saying those things about me really helped. What would have been great was to actually have a match with him. Things were kind of leading up to that, I thought; that's one of the minor things that I'm actually annoyed about is that I never actually got to have a match. It's not to stroke my own ego, but it's about iron really sharpening iron,” said Starks. “I'm the type of person who would be able to benefit from that, in terms of excelling in my talent. At the time where Hobbs turned on me, I think we were already there [crowd reacting favourably and momentum] and it was already a rolling boiling. Things had to have happened in that sense. Otherwise, to go another six or eight months and really just floating in limbo would not have been very beneficial to me, I don't think.”

Punk is seemingly all but done with AEW following the post-show locker room fight after All Out, but Starks still holds hope that he can wrestle him:

"I would hope so, I really do. I thought Punk, (William) Regal, these people that came in were great additions to the locker room. Great additions in terms of what they provided. I know, personally, I was able to talk to Punk a lot and get help on my promos and things like that. Same with Regal, because I've known him for so long. It was kind of a blow that both of these guys left. I am hopeful that down the line I do get that matchup. If not, I get it, that's how the business is, but it would be nice. It would be nice to be able to work with somebody of that caliber because I've yet to work with, besides Sting, I've yet to work with somebody of such a high caliber, and the Sting match was a year or two ago,” said Starks.

H/T: Fightful