In an interview with Chris Van Vliet for Insight (via Fightful), Ricky Starks spoke about his first promo after CM Punk was fired from AEW and noted that he was told to be grateful he had a job. Starks was in a feud with Punk at the time and immediately had to shift to fighting Bryan Danielson.
He said: “Before I went out, I was nervous, but I guess I didn’t really realize what was about to happen. I was so frustrated in such a beautiful and organic way. The day before, Tony comes out and announces that Punk is gone. I actually opened that show with a promo. Watch the promo. Very good, and you can kind of tell what’s happening. I was so frustrated about things happening the way they have. I’ll never forget someone telling me, ‘Just be grateful that you even have a job.’ I’ll never forget feeling like, ‘How dare you.’ Don’t tell me to be grateful for something that I’ve worked very hard for. That saying, ‘I know that you’re hungry for a dinner. Here is a half-eaten loaf of bread. Let me take that back. Here are the crumbs.’ Fuck you. Don’t tell me to be grateful for something. You don’t live my life and understand the things I’ve gone through to get in this moment. It really set me off. When it came to Sunday, I was looking forward to it, but I didn’t realize what laid ahead of me and what I was going to be capable of what I was doing. Bryan had that injury too and we had to deal with that.“
