You’ll almost never hear the names CM Punk or AJ Lee brought up in the WWE these days, but those attending Monday Night RAW this week in Los Angeles -- myself included -- got tons of mentions of both, thanks to megastar Dwayne Johnson.
Yes, The Rock was back in a WWE arena Monday, but not for one of his occasional in-ring appearances on RAW itself, but rather as producer of the upcoming movie Fighting With My Family. The film, directed by The Office co-creator/Logan actor Stephen Merchant, is based on the life of WWE superstar Paige and her family of British wrestlers. With WWE co-producing, RAW was being used this night to double for… RAW. Specifically, a recreation of the night Paige made her debut in WWE following her time in NXT, immediately winning th Divas Championship from AJ Lee in the process (before that title was replaced by the current Women’s Championship).
Director Stephen Merchant, actress Florence Pugh and producer Dwayne Johnson on the set of Fighting With My Family. Image via Florence Pugh's Twitter
Johnson came out to speak to the crowd before RAW went on the air to explain the filming that would be taking place after the show, his hope people would stick around to populate the crowd for the film, and how they would recreate the AJ/Paige match. And while the crowd was understandably excited to see The Rock, and amused by Vince McMahon briefly joining him on the entrance ramp to deliver his patented “You’re fired!”, it was Johnson’s second, post-RAW appearance where things got especially interesting.
When Johnson again mentioned AJ, as he described the scene being filmed, the crowd began chanting “CM Punk,” evoking AJ’s real life husband. Punk (AKA Phil Brooks) of course not only quit WWE a few years ago, but did so under very bad circumstances, with no indication the two sides have mended fences since. Johnson noted he was aware that Punk’s name might be chanted beforehand... and then decided, apparently off the cuff, that it would be fun to call Punk up on the phone right then and there, as he stood in the middle of the WWE ring at Staples Center.
Johnson did indeed call Punk, only to get his voice mail, on which he explained where he was and that thousands were cheering for Punk, which the crowd was only too happy to again give an example of. And lo and behold, Punk did try to call Johnson back a few minutes later, who unfortunately missed the call, as he was busy asking the crowd to cheer, boo and make various other noises that would be used in Fighting With My Family (the film also stars Shaun of the Dead's Nick Frost and Game of Thrones' Lena Headey as Paige's parents). Johnson then tried calling Punk again, this time as a Facetime call, but to no avail.
After that, actress Florence Pugh and wrestler/actress Thea Trinidad came to the ring as Paige and AJ, respectively, to film Fighting With My Family, for a rather surreal recreation of what occurred at the RAW on Monday, April 7th, 2014. As a fan of both WWE and AJ Lee (who now goes by AJ Brooks), hearing her old theme music play was very odd after all this time. Trinidad did a solid job emulating AJ – even if her ring gear was notably different than AJ's was during her tenure in WWE. In fact, it's still not clear if they will identify the character as AJ Lee in the movie or not, but the promo she delivered was word for word the one AJ gave on that RAW.
While Pugh acquitted herself very well, given she had no wrestling experience prior to being cast in the film, there were some rather amusing moments during the match (which was all done essentially in real time, with no breaks in filming) where either she or Trinidad would simply lay down to cover a moment where a big move would occur that would be added later via additional filming. And indeed, some of the footage that will be used “later” was shot immediately after, as Trinidad once more went through the match - but with Pugh’s double, wrestler Tessa Blanchard, stepping in as Paige for a more physical, high speed reenactment.
As for Punk, he had two tweets that night explaining why he missed Johnson’s call and what he felt about it. And yes, Larry is his dog.
I&#Array;m walking Larry. It&#Array;s his birthday.
— Coach (@CMPunk) February 21, 2017
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.
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