AEW All In Footage: Will CM Punk’s Backstage Fight Kill AEW?

He may be injured and on the sidelines but CM Punk is front and centre of all wrestling news as AEW aired the previously unseen backstage footage of the infamous All In brawl from August 2023. On this week’s episode of Dynamite Tony Khan decided to air the security camera footage showing the backstage fight that occurred right before the main show of All In started where CM Punk and Jack Perry ended up in an altercation that had to be broken up which would ultimately result in CM Punk’s departure from AEW and return to WWE and Jack Perry’s suspension form which he has yet to return to the company.

For context, Jack Perry was facing Hook on the last match of the All In: Buy-In show before the main card, as the two fought to the entrance way near a limo that Perry was driven into the arena in, Perry tapped on the windshield and said into the camera “Real glass! Go cry me a river!” This was a reference to a segment that was planned on AEW Collison several week earlier where Perry wanted to use real glass in a segment to write himself off TV but Punk who was producer of Collision since his return in June 2023 shot the idea down claiming it was ‘Stupid and dangerous’ to use real glass in the segment which Perry agreed and the idea was dropped.

IMG Credit: MMA Hour

Fast forward to London and Perry supposedly got his wish to use real glass in his match which everyone watching immediately knew was a shot at Punk. After the match Perry walked through the curtain to be confronted by Punk who was scheduled to be the opening match of All In against Samoa Joe, as Punk himself recalled on the now legendary MMA Hour interview with Ariel Helwani last week, he asked why Perry seemingly took a minor issue and decided to take it personally he claimed that Perry told him to do something about it, and a scuffle ensued which lead to Punk leaving the promotion. On Wednesday night the fateful footage was showed on Dynamite by the Young Bucks, also company EVP’s Matt and Nick Jackson who introduced the footage.

As the footage showed Punk confronts Perry, the discussion seems calm at first, then we visibly see Perry telling Punk to do something about it, afterwards Punk then forcibly shoves Perry to which Perry tries to tackle Punk who proceeds to grab him in a chokehold as they stumbled into the backstage monitors in the gorilla position before it was quickly broken up by Jerry Lynn, Chris Hero and Samoa Joe who separated them. As Punk is being held he begins talking to someone off the camera who we can’t see but is believed to be Tony Khan which matches up to what Punk said when he told Tony “This place is a joke! You’re a clown! I quit!”

The biggest takeaway from the footage is that CM Punk was proven to be completely right in what he said and has been vindicated, there are minor discrepancies in the stories, Punk was clearly the one who started the physical altercation by showing Perry but that aside everything else was exactly as Punk described. As the footage is being played in the arena the fans were chanting “CM Punk”. The fans only interest in this segement was about the only wrestler who isn’t employed by the company right now, proving that Punk is the only person that AEW fans care about, he was the company’s megastar who was driving viewers and numbers up and seemingly leading the company up to the heights and that they could do nothing wrong and a series of events set off a chain reaction that ultimately lead to that night at Wembley Stadium which in turn has brought us to where we are now.

IMG Credit: Wrestling Inc

Many will look at Jack Perry as the man who was responsible for all of this by not listening to Punk’s advice, and while he definitely didn’t help the situation by seemingly wanting to do whatever he wanted it also shines another bad light on the management in AEW as no-one appeared to attempt to rein Perry in or at least try to defuse the matter before it exploded. Also it says something that Perry was initially suspended but it’s been 7 months since the incident and hasn’t been brought back, it may lead to an angle where Perry joins the Young Bucks to play off the segment but it will only highlight what Punk claimed by saying Perry got away with doing this because of who he’s friends with.

IMG Credit: Forbes

One other point that’s very glaring from this is Tony Khan seemingly makes no attempt to defuse the situation which further solidifies what Punk claimed in the Helwani interview about the fact that Tony isn’t a real boss and the alarming lack of leadership shown by the supposed president of the company is both inept and laughable. Something else that is being noted is there is a crucial missing piece, where was the part of this where Tony Khan feared for his life? Given the context of what we saw, it seemed like a gross over-dramatisation by Tony Khan to either make himself sympathetic to the fans or to smear Punk’s reputation but all has been accomplished by showing that tape is that Khan looks like a weak leader who overreacted and that Punk was simply an disgruntled man who had, in his mind, been pushed dover the edge and lost his cool in a highly pressured moment.

In conclusion, this entire farce has only served to make AEW look like a second rate promotion who seemingly can’t let go of it’s mistakes and is using drama and revealing the secrets behind the curtain to grab the attention of viewers which is mirror imaging what WCW were doing in 1999-2000 and in a time where wrestling is experiencing a renaissance in the public eye, Tony Khan has only succeeded in making his company look bush league. As WWE is delivering record attendances for weekly shows and their PLE’s, fan interest and positivity is the highest it’s been in decades, on the week that WWE produced the ultimate fairytale ending at WrestleMania with Cody Rhodes winning the WWE Championship to complete his story, Tony Khan may have ended any chance that All Elite Wrestling had at being a viable competitor and instead of moving on and trying to help. the company grow and move upwards, his petulance is sinking the company into the darkness of irrelevancy and this may be the point of no return.