When news broke that CM Punk had officially been fired from AEW, fans from around the wrestling world began fantasy booking the “Best in the World” for their favorite promotion.

On paper, it made sense, right? Punk is still in his prime and has a massive fanbase that will certainly follow him wherever he goes in the professional wrestling world. Place him in New Japan Pro Wrestling, give him a spot in WWE, or even call up Impact and give him a partial ownership stake in the company to appear on the weekly show, and surely a few thousand more fans will tune in to see what and where he goes next, right?

Not necessarily, as, according to ex-WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr., Punk's reputation might hurt him more than help him. That's right, while attempting to establish his own Fed, Prinze was repeatedly told that he shouldn't sign Punk because of his antics.

“I hate to sound cold and brutal like that, but I’ve talked about the Federation that I want to start here. I’ve spoken to professional wrestlers and said, ‘Hey, man, would you be down to help me out if I’m doing this?’ I’m not joking. Every single wrestler that I reached out to but one said, ‘Anything you need. I would love to help you. Just don’t hire Phil’, and this is over 10,” Freddie Prinze Jr. said on his eponymous podcast via Wrestling Headlines. “It’s over 10, okay, and only one didn’t say anything, and I don’t know how they feel about the guy, but everybody else was like, ‘Don’t hire Punk. Please don’t hire Punk. Dude, I’ll help you out, but if you hire Punk, I’m out.’ Like, it was everybody, and that has to be a mirror that causes you to go, ‘Yeah, dude, it’s time to change.’ At least that’s what I think, and again, if you disagree with me out there, I got nothing but love for you. I may not agree with your take, but I respect it. I know. Everybody loves him, and he’s one of the best to ever do this wrestling thing.”

Now granted, will some promoters feel differently than Prinze about Punker's viability as a ticket mover? Sure, Tony Khan gave the “Best in the World” multiple chances to make things right before he was fired, and if it wasn't for Jack Perry, he might still be a member of the roster now. Still, when it comes to Prinze's as-of-yet-unnamed promotion, it sounds like Punk won't be making any appearances any time soon.

Freddie Prinze Jr. opens up about his bad WWE experience with CM Punk.

So why, you may wonder, does Freddie Prinze Jr. have what seems like a bad relationship with CM Punk? Is it really just based on second-hand information?

Well, as it turns out, Prinze did have some time in WWE that overlapped with Punk, and let's just say things didn't go particularly well, as he explained on Wrestling with Freddie.

“What can I say here? Okay. I’m friends with some of the people that he’s had an issue with, first and foremost, so I should get that out of the way so everyone goes, ‘Oh, Prinze is biased’. Yeah, I’m biased, but I will say this. When you keep doing the same thing over and over, and you keep blaming everyone else, and it’s the world’s fault, right, like that Alessia Cara song, ‘You don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart.’ The world ain’t going to change for you or for nobody, and the world don’t owe you sh*t. It’s your responsibility as a human being to find out your place in this world and make the absolute most of it, but the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing, and a lot of people end up in a similar situation every single time because they keep behaving a certain way that turns people off. It’s really hard to p*ss people off. It’s really easy to make them feel good. At a certain point, I think you have to turn that finger towards yourself and say, ‘Okay, what is it about me? What am I doing wrong’, or you have to have someone, a therapist, a wife, a best friend, who calls you on your sh*t, who says, ‘Yo, man. This is the third time, the third time, the third time. How many more before you figure out that this might be more of a you problem and less of a them problem?'” Prinze said.

“I know there’s going to be a lot of our listeners who disagree with me, you know, I respect where you’re coming from. I get it. You love him and a lot of the young people you might think are soft, and maybe you think he’s tough. I get it. I’m not trying to say you’re wrong. I’m just trying to let you know where I’m coming from based off my experience with him, like, he wasn’t a nice guy to me and it would have been easy to be nice to me, and instead he would just blow me off every time I walked by when I worked there, and I was never going to work with him because he didn’t need my help. So I was always like, why are you going out of your way to be a d*ck to me if you and I are never going to work together? Ever, ever.”

Is it possible that Prinze simply caught Punk on a bad day? Sure, but based on everything he shared, it's safe to say this is a pairing that likely won't come together at any point in the future, not that either man appears particularly interested in making that happen.