When AEW and WWE ran Dynamite and NXT head-on on October 10th, it rekindled a war between the two promotions that has been ever present since the challenger brand launched on television in 2019 but has been in a bit of a lull since Shawn Michaels' show was moved to Tuesday nights.

… or did it?

Sitting down for an interview with Booker T on his Hall of Fame podcast, the “World's Strongest Man,” Mark Henry suggested that, in his opinion at least, there is and really shouldn't be a war between the two brands, as any competition, at least when it pertains to dueling screen time, simply dilutes both products.

“There is no war. You know what the war is? The war is the ratings in your segment. Do people turn the channel to another channel when you're on? When Sexual Chocolate was on, they didn't turn the channel. When the World's Strongest Man and the Hall of Pain was on, they didn't turn the channel. You could put me up there with some of the best. When Booker T was King Booker, they didn't turn the channel. So that's where the war is. The war is in the segments and the individuals,” Mark Henry told Booker T via Fightful.

“If I'm the WWE, I don't want to be on the same night as AEW because I want all the attention. If I'm AEW, I'm not gonna move my show to a day that WWE is on, unless I'm pre-empted. That's the whole point of AEW going to Tuesday, is because we had to. It wasn't like, ‘Oh, we're gonna go there and p*ss in their cornflakes.' That isn't what we did. I'm telling you, it's not a war. A lot of the reason that things happen is because of programming notes and with the network. That's the only way that you should be in a conversation about going on the same channel. Everybody should have a… you got seven days a week.”

On paper, it's kind of hard to argue with Henry's line of thinking; while NXT did have its best number in years thanks to a supercharged lineup featuring everyone from Cody Rhodes to John Cena, Asuka, and The Undertaker, if they produced that same card without AEW drawing 600,000 fans across the proverbial street, they might have cracked a million or even a little bit more with some Dynamite-lovers curious to see what some of the biggest stars of the last decade or two were doing in developmental. While vying for the top spot in professional wrestling is important, so is a healthy industry, as it cane produce crossover stars like Jade Cargill.

Mark Henry dispels this misnomer about CM Punk in AEW.

Elsewhere in his conversation with Booker T and Brad Gilmore on their Hall of Fame podcast, Mark Henry weighed in on the AEW exit of CM Punk, which remains an incredibly hot topic despite Tony Khan's best effort to move past the situation with the signing of Adam Copeland.

Discussing the rumor that CM Punk was unwilling to help out young talent in AEW's trenches, Henry noted that he saw the opposite, explaining that Punk's old-school style may have simply been off-putting to some of the boys in the back.

“I disagree. I saw him try to uplift the younger talent. AEW's not a small pool. AEW is, any time you can go to an arena and sell 80,000-plus tickets, you're not little. I feel like Punk is a lot like some of the people in sports that I know,” Henry noted via Fightful.

“The people in sports, they hate the fact that college football and college students are getting paid money now. It's an old-school mentality. The old-school mentality rubs young people the wrong way. Young people call you a boomer, or they say you're old, or outdated. Some people are stuck in their ways. Punk is stuck in his way, and that's not a knock. I like conviction. I like somebody that can stand to their guns, and they can debate with you on the fact that, you know what, this is why sometimes being old will save your life. Because I knew better, I experienced it. I went through the fire. I feel like Punk's delivery of some of that conviction fell on deaf ears.”

With CM Punk's non-compete clause presumably coming to an end in November, a situation that has led to some heavy speculation surrounding his potential re-debut in WWE at Survivor Series, the dull roar of buzz surrounding what the “Best in the World” will do next will inevitably pitch up over the next month, with a “Thanksgiving of Punk” very much a possibility in the Second City. As the tides continue to turn, don't be surprised if more positive press comes out in Punk's defense, especially from people like Henry, who saw his behavior first-hand in the AEW locker room.