Ryan Nemeth Reportedly Sent AEW Complaint Claiming He Was ‘Silently Fired’ Over CM Punk Issues

Ryan Nemeth has reportedly sent a complaint to AEW executives stemming from his AEW exit, which he says was over his issues with CM Punk. Fightful Select reports that they have obtained the complaint, which was sent to several executives in the company and dated September 12th. The complaint from Nemeth features a timeline of events he says occurred and demonstrate abuse, harassment, and threats he faced while working in AEW. Nemeth says that the abuse stemmed from Punk, his actual issue is that AEW did not respond to any of the incidents, and that he was encouraged to cut a promo that antagonized Punk, who is described as “a former AEW talent who also had an undisclosed (i.e. not publicly known) Executive/Producer/Manager title with AEW.”

In addition to the timeline, Nemeth says in the statement that he has emails, texts, phone call logs and other records supporting his side. The report makes clear that all the below are individual claims made by Nemeth, mainly as outlined in the complaint.

Nemeth says that he contacted Megha Parekh (who was then AEW’s Legal rep) on April 16th, 2023 expressing concerns that he would be targeted by Punk and that he did get threatened by Punk in the locker room on June 21st of that year. The incident was reportedly over the previously-reported tweet where Nemeth called Punk “the softest man alive,” which Nemeth claimed was an in-character post.

According to Nemeth, he got empathy over the matter from Parekh, Tony Schiavone, and the Young Bucks and was assured that his relationship would not be impacted. The complaint does not specify who gave such assurance. He goes on to say that he wasn’t booked for two months after that and that Jon Moxley, who supported him throughout the timeline, contacted him and said that the matter didn’t sit right with him.

He goes on to note that he contacted Parekh on July 17th and expressed that he was upset AEW had not responded to the locker room incident, and believed AEW was going to “silently fire” him by allowing his exclusive pay-per-appearance deal to expire. Nemeth believed that he was being punished, but Parekh assured him that speaking up about the matter wouldn’t impact his job there.

Nemeth’s timeline notes that he was booked for the first time in two months on August 12th for AEW Collision, but as previously reported he was asked to leave. The complaint notes that Pat Buck originally said that there was travel confusion before eventually confirming that Punk demanded that he be removed from the building. As noted back then, several talent were kept off the show. The report notes that Nemeth claims he has an audio recording of some of his interactions on that day.

He goes on to say that he contacted Parekh again and pleaded for some action to be taken and was flown to the August 16th episode of Dynamite, where he was, in the wording of the document, “ordered to to verbally antagonize the ‘World Champion'” (aka Punk) in a promo in front of the audience that was taped for AEW programming. He says that he spoke with AEW Legal and HR that day, but that there was no appropriate response to anything in the situation. Parekh exited her position in AEW Legal and Nemeth was instead dealing with Chris Peck and Margaret Stalvey.

Nemeth says he was asked to speak to outside counsel after the AEW All Out altercation between Jack Perry and Punk, as they were investigating the Punk matter, and said that he’s been speaking up about Punk’s behavior for months and was worried about being made the patsy in the situation. According to those in the company that Fightful spoke to, the conversation was more about determining how to move forward regarding Punk and AEW as opposed to fixing the issues between Punk, Nemeth and AEW.

Nemeth says that he was told that his contract would not be left to expire despite his expressing such concerns. His last time working for AEW was on November 18th, 2023 which was the week before Punk returned to AEW. Nemeth said he believed that Tony Khan and AEW hold him responsible for having to fire Punk, which led to his WWE return.

Nemeth’s AEW contract expired in March of 2024 despite his claims that Sonjay Dutt made several creative pitches for him that were ignored.

Nemeth says after the completion of the timeline, Chris Peck communicated a settlement offer that would equate to about three years of his salary and was contingent on an NDA on the matter being signed. Nemeth says that he appreciated the offer and wanted to discuss it, but his legal counsel said the offer was no longer an option. Nemeth also claims that Peck told him he’d “be placed in an antagonistic position to Megha if things ever escalated to arbitration,” though Nemeth says he always had a positive working relationship with Parekh. He also alleges that Peck threatened to sue him over sending the timeline.

Nemeth says he’s met with mental health professionals over the whole thing and wants a change in AEW’s policies as well as the discussed financial consideration. He goes on to say he believes the AEW roster is filled with great people who desrve to be in a safe environment and doesn’t necessarily think Punk was the catalyst for that not being the case. He notes that his concerns were ignored by Peck and AEW, and that others have communicated similar issues to Peck.

The document says that AEW Legal and HR received the timeline, but Peck did not as things have hit a stalemate with him. He goes on to say that Parekh, the Young Bucks, and Jon Moxley were all helpful to him in the matter.

Fightful finally reports that Nemeth spoke with Tony Khan and others in the company months ago, and that Khan had considered the notion of Nemeth returning, but Nemeth did not want to. AEW has not responded to Fightful’s requests for comment on the matter.