When I first heard that The YoungBucks (and Tony Khan) would be showing the footage of the fight from All In at Wembley between CM Punk and Jack Perry, I thought it was a bad idea. Showing that footage would do nothing but harm the goodwill that AEW had shown in the last month since AEW Revolution and the retirement of Sting. At this point (eight months after the incident happened), it’s been too long since the incident between CM Punk and Jack Perry took place. Even though Punk felt it necessary to talk about what happened, it seemed that AEW had finally moved on from the incident, were going in a more positive direction, and was building the company back up from all the drama that was the Toxicity between Punk and mainly the Elite supposedly. Nothing would be gained from showing this footage, so I really hoped against hope that the whole thing would just be a swerve to the fans, thus continuing with this heel turn that the Bucks are on. For the most part, they have made me believe in this heel turn, and they were doing a good job, playing the douciest, most ridiculous, and power-hungry heels to date. With tonight’s Dynamite, AEW has taken about five steps backward from what they built in March, and they are sending AEW down the wrong path.
After watching the footage multiple times, I’ve come to realize one thing, and what I thought about the whole thing was reinforced. 1–Punk wasn’t completely truthful when giving his account of what happened that day. True, he and Perry got in a scuffle, but from previous accounts told about what happened, I’ve heard from various wrestling news sites and dirty sheets that Perry started the fight and may have thrown a punch or two. Also, from the footage, it clearly showed that Punk approached Perry, and was the first one to start the altercation and he was the only to throw any type of punches or aggressive actions. During the totality of the video, Perry never acted like he was about to hit Punk or acted in any type of aggressive manner at all. In fact, when Punk had finally shoved Perry back to initiate the altercation, Perry actually had his hands in his hair.
2–the situation was completely avoidable. From what Punk said, he was in his locker room when Perry said what he did. From the video, Punk was the one who approached Perry as soon as he got backstage after the end of his match. Punk almost immediately stepped into Perry’s personal space. If Punk had just stayed in his locker room, and had not been triggered by Perry’s words, this wouldn’t have happened. I mean people are allowed to say what they want, but to be so upset about something so inane as real glass is just childish. To start a fight over it, was even worse, and not adult at all (Punk commented about being the only adult in the situation in an interview in which he talked about the incident).
3–I still think that showing this footage was a VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY…VERY bad move, and is going to set back AEW as a promotion for months…maybe years to come. We’ll just have to see. I will say this–showing the footage eight months later makes them look petty and asinine, and that’s not a good look for a promotion that’s trying to be a good alternative to WWE. Frankly, it doesn’t matter that they used the excuse of using it to further a fued between the “hellish” Youngbucks and the “good guys” FTR. All it did was give the promotion, and specifically Tony Khan and the Youngbucks a black eye, and to a lesser degree “go away” heat, not “bad guy/heel” heat.
I really hope that the folks at AEW can turn this around, and go back to delivering stories with long-term booking, great matches and bring the fans back to the product. I really hope that showing this garbage footage didn’t permanently sour the promotion’s popularity to the point that it becomes another tale (much like WCW and ECW) of promotions that had all the potential in the world, but were brought low by their own hands.
