Punk Scrum Thread II: Punk terminated from AEW

[ChitownKnight]

Knowing Jericho he is the type that would blow things up and exaggerate stories to Meltzer, but it’s also 100% believable that Mox and Hangman don’t like him right now either which is completely understandable. People like FTR, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Ricky Starks probably looked up to him and Punk appreciated them while Mox, Hangman, Jericho ect he thought of as threats to his spot. Either way I still think Punk is entertaining and I hope he makes amends with the locker room and comes back, even if it’s as a part timer so he doesn’t f***ing bug anyone lol

[tntchamp]

Dec 30, 2022 14:00:05 GMT -5 Final Countdown Jones said:

Dec 30, 2022 13:48:40 GMT -5 tntchamp said:

Yeah that's what I feel. I am starting to feel that despite Punk directing his anger towards the elite it really seems like Jericho was the one he should have been mad at. In general I have been saying that Punk's blow up wasn't over just one or two things happening and something bigger probably happened. 

I can agree that what Punk did was over a lot of complicated things and not just one event, but I don't think you can go as hard as you have on "This is all he said/she said" but then also play internet detective off a few scattershot elements to go on and say that Jericho is the real killer and that he leaked the rumours. That's just fanfiction.

I am not saying it is for a fact Jericho. I am just speculating on the matter because I don't know anymore then anyone lese. Hell I acknowledge that I can be completely wrong because everything we have is all people telling their version.  

[Herman The Tosser]

Dec 30, 2022 13:47:34 GMT -5 Fade said:

Dec 30, 2022 13:45:05 GMT -5 Final Countdown Jones said:

Jericho had allegedly called Punk locker room cancer the night of All Out but before the scrum even happened. It tells me that there is a lot going on that is way more complicated than just the blow-up he had that one night.

Before? Who said that? I recall the report of him calling him that after the scrum.

That's the version I remember. Punk ranted, went back to his room, the Bucks and everyone showed up to confront him, the fight happened. Jericho shows up and calls Punk a cancer, Punk tells him it's none of his business and asks him to leave.

EDIT:

As for who is leaking stuff... "Web Is Jericho" is a website that exists. Chris Jericho owns a site that reports wrestling news from places like Wrestling Observer and the like. At best, I find that weird. Conflict of interest, even.

Maybe, just maybe, Punk was on to something. Missed the target but still hit the tree.

[HMARK Center]

Yeah, whatever one wants to say about Punk's legitimate drawing power, and it *is* legitimate, he's still an increasingly injury-prone guy nearing his mid-40s who, when a tense moment arose, cracked under the knowledge that he was hurt and used his platform to lash out at his coworkers, publicly humiliate his boss, and then privately assault the Elite.

I have no doubt that people in the AEW locker room appreciate the business Punk helped them do; I have no doubt that he was a good help or influence to some of those people, as we've heard some publicly speak about (e.g. Max Caster, Ricky Starks, and others have commented on going to Punk for advice and feeling welcome). Trying to depict anyone in terms of black-and-white morality is a fool's errand, and like all people Punk no doubt has his positives and his negatives.

But I also have little doubt that most of them saw what he did and thought "holy shit, we can't have that going on, here." All anyone could talk about after All Out wasn't the lineup of really good matches, wasn't the reaction to MJF's return, wasn't a bunch of fun conjecture over "ooh, I can't wait to see what comes next!", all anyone could talk about was the promotion's champion taking a public, verbal shit on the people around him and then create a potential legal crisis for the promotion, a situation that so early in a promotion's life has the potential to turn you into a laughingstock, or even worse into a place that's perceived to be toxic and dangerous. Even wrestlers who might've appreciated stuff Punk personally did for them at some point during his time in the company might also have thought "this guy just went into business for himself and put all our livelihoods at risk in the process." That's really, really hard to come back from in a professional capacity, even if you're still cool with the guy on a personal level.

[dreidemy]

Chris Jericho leaking stuff to Dave Meltzer is an open secret for more than 20 years

Its no coincidence that the AEW backstage news didnt stop with the Elite suspension

[The Captain]

Punk's drawing power in terms of selling gates or getting ratings has diminishing returns. He was responsible for some huge numbers upon his return to pro wrestling, that's fact. But they eventually leveled off even when he was always a big focus of the show.

Like Dynamite's summer streak of being number 1 in ratings and regularly getting over a million live viewers weekly? That was with Punk on the shelf. Their biggest shows still sell out in terms of gate, and a random Dynamite in a saturated market isn't going to move tickets as fast whether Punk is or isn't there.

Where Punk's loss hurts most is merch sales. That's his biggest strength: getting people to buy his shit. But is it worth the headache a lot of the locker room thinks he is? Probably not.

[Zone Was Wrong]

Look, I'm Punk's biggest fan, in terms of the in-ring product, but not even I want him back. Sometimes backstage morale has to take precedent over anything else he could bring to the table again.

[HMARK Center]

Dec 30, 2022 13:14:21 GMT -5 @thelongandtheshort said:

Dec 30, 2022 12:45:21 GMT -5 Feargus McReddit said:

I mean…I watched the show. Even if I knew nothing about what was going on, that first post-All Out episode of the show felt like they were flying off the seat of their pants with a lot of stuff. There isn’t usually new champions being stripped days later with no real kayfabe reason because what kayfabe reason could there be? “The Firm killed them”?

Heck, look at The Firm. They were established at the show and so far, their only role is to be ditched by MJF and fill feud slots when needed. You can’t tell me there wasn’t supposed to be bigger plans with them together before all that happened. It’s only now that they’ve grown to some kind of place on the roster and that took 3 months.

Someone feel free to chime in if there's more I missed, but f*** me, let's look at all the plans that had to be scrapped and redone within days because of Punk.

- The Mox and Danielson tag team

- MJF and The Firm, which in turn sidelined FTR and Wardlow's plans as it's been insinuated

- Taking it back even further, Moxley's vacation, which has become a meme at this point

- I'd also probably make the argument that it forced Tony to hotshot the title to MJF.  Yeah, I'm sure the plan was always to put it on MJF, but Punk was gone and Mox, while reliable, was getting long in the tooth in terms of exposure to the audience. Tying back to the MJF/Firm thing, I think there were probably months worth of matches and programs that were mapped for that feud and then went up in flames. 

So, yeah.  If I'm in Tony's position, Punk can 100% go eat shit and get f***ed, because unless the dude is selling out Wrestlemania 3 style, he's not worth the headache backstage, and he's basically just made of bitchy tissue paper at this point.

And let's not forget another part of the context, here: Punk did what he did and stirred up all the complications he did against a backdrop heading into All Out where AEW was dealing with a ton of other issues, whether injuries, mental issues that had to be handled, or other miscellania:
-The Eddie/Sammy drama - good on Eddie for taking ownership for it, but it seem it changed plans for him over the last few months.
-Cole's and reDragon's injuries - Adam Cole tearing the Elite apart from within was meant to be a main event storyline, but after Forbidden Door it all had to stop in its tracks. This impacted everyone from the Undisputed guys to the Elite and beyond.
-House of Black stepping away - All Out happened with everyone fully aware that Malakai, at minimum, would be stepping away for awhile afterwards. This meant losing a lot of the build up that had gone into the faction, plus Miro and Darby being sidetracked (though Darby's team at least got their moment against Brody and Buddy at Grand Slam). Every chance in the world that Elite vs. HoB was in the plans before this.
-Thunder Rosa's injury - yes, Toni Storm and Jamie Hayter stepped up huge in her wake, but Rosa's injuries had clearly impacted her even before she went off TV, which likely altered some other ongoing plans.
-Christian Cage's injury - definitely shaped how the storyline with Jungle Boy unfolded, though at least he and Luchasaurus recovered things well at Full Gear.
-Kris Statlander's injury - definitely had an effect on the TBS title scene, since word is she was ticketed to be the one to defeat Jade.
-Kenny Omega just getting back from a prolonged absence - dude's a massive part of the company, they just got him back, and in the wake of this he's going to be missing *again*.
-Samoa Joe filming Twisted Metal - easier to deal with and plan around, of course, but Joe would've been invaluable to have around while so many other big names were missing or having their plans shifted due to all these things.
-Cody leaving - no duh that meant a lot of moving parts shifting around.
-MJF's issues - resolved in time for All Out, obviously, but think about what kind of chaos that likely meant at the beginning.

Shit, I feel like I'm missing some others, but they had all of this going on before All Out, which meant they were a promotion desperate for anything resembling stability moving forward, especially with Grand Slam on the near horizon. Now Punk got hurt, which would've just been another brick on the load but isn't something anyone's going to go out of their way to blame Punk for, he obviously didn't want to injure himself, but instead Punk had to go absolutely nuclear and create the shitstorm that derailed all the other stuff you mentioned in your post that was meant to happen after All Out - all the stuff for the Firm, for FTR, for Wardlow, for the Elite, for anyone who might've been set to work with them, all of it had to be changed because Punk had to act so unprofessionally in public and then commit literal assault.

It's why the whole "Khan needs to learn to pivot better" talking point is so strange to read against this backdrop; like, yeah, there have been times when the guy's been too wedded to one booking outcome and likely didn't shift away from it as quickly as he could've when circumstances changed, fair, but look, just look at this @#$%ing list. At a moment when the promotion badly needed steady leadership and stability, Punk threw a live grenade into the middle of the room. Again, even if you're cool with him in the wake of all that and forgive him on a personal level, it's *very* difficult, and likely dangerous, to forget that on a professional one.

And yeah, if I'm Moxley, Hangman, Jericho, and other guys near the top? Damn right I'm looking at what Punk and thinking "this guy is a political nightmare, I don't want him around here, anymore." Dude went out and set about publicly sabotaging people because he was pissed off about something! That's not "Hogan keeping Bret Hart down in WCW by trying to get Bischoff to make him the main star on Thunder while Hogan could keep dominating Nitro", that's "this dude's @#$%ing unstable, no way do I want to deal with that."

[Kalmia]

I don't think anyone has even hinted that Punk is universally hated. He's always had people who like him. He even posted a photo with the Bucks on his Instagram before all this happened.

He's always been divisive though. He's always rubbed people the wrong way and never really seemed to care if he does. You're never going to have a fully harmonious locker room where everyone loves each other, but they have to be willing to let things go and work together.

I think that's where Punk can be a problem to a locker room. You don't want to cause a situation where it's people who support Punk against people who don't.

[Fade]

Dec 30, 2022 14:49:15 GMT -5 Kalmia said:

I don't think anyone has even hinted that Punk is universally hated. He's always had people who like him. He even posted a photo with the Bucks on his Instagram before all this happened.

He's always been divisive though. He's always rubbed people the wrong way and never really seemed to care if he does. You're never going to have a fully harmonious locker room where everyone loves each other, but they have to be willing to let things go and work together.

I think that's where Punk can be a problem to a locker room. You don't want to cause a situation where it's people who support Punk against people who don't.

f***ing insane how it went from “All Friends Wrestling” to “Who got into a fight in AEW today?” for a minute there.

Seems like everything’s mellowed out..

[khali]

Dec 30, 2022 14:21:48 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

Yeah, whatever one wants to say about Punk's legitimate drawing power, and it *is* legitimate, he's still an increasingly injury-prone guy nearing his mid-40s who, when a tense moment arose, cracked under the knowledge that he was hurt and used his platform to lash out at his coworkers, publicly humiliate his boss, and then privately assault the Elite.

I have no doubt that people in the AEW locker room appreciate the business Punk helped them do; I have no doubt that he was a good help or influence to some of those people, as we've heard some publicly speak about (e.g. Max Caster, Ricky Starks, and others have commented on going to Punk for advice and feeling welcome). Trying to depict anyone in terms of black-and-white morality is a fool's errand, and like all people Punk no doubt has his positives and his negatives.

But I also have little doubt that most of them saw what he did and thought "holy shit, we can't have that going on, here." All anyone could talk about after All Out wasn't the lineup of really good matches, wasn't the reaction to MJF's return, wasn't a bunch of fun conjecture over "ooh, I can't wait to see what comes next!", all anyone could talk about was the promotion's champion taking a public, verbal shit on the people around him and then create a potential legal crisis for the promotion, a situation that so early in a promotion's life has the potential to turn you into a laughingstock, or even worse into a place that's perceived to be toxic and dangerous. Even wrestlers who might've appreciated stuff Punk personally did for them at some point during his time in the company might also have thought "this guy just went into business for himself and put all our livelihoods at risk in the process." That's really, really hard to come back from in a professional capacity, even if you're still cool with the guy on a personal level.

Honestly, the injury factor can’t be ignored for his future value either. Even if the brawl didn’t happen, he probably would have had to transition to an occasional special attraction match. Dude got hurt twice after winning the title. Putting him near the title again would be risky.

[polarbearpete]

There are definitely a lot of positives business-wise that can come out of Punk and the Elite/the locker room making amends and doing business together. Whether Punk can get to a point where he can be in the locker room week after week as a regular or if he can be a part-timer that comes in for a few big programs is probably an open question.

If I was Khan, though, with TV negotiations upcoming, and with ticket sales trending down on the whole for a while now, I’d be looking to make a Punk return happen.

[Dub H]

I dint care if he bringa viewers ,he can go away with his toxic behavior behavior take his cult away with him

[Dub H]

Dec 31, 2022 10:05:36 GMT -5 polarbearpete said:

There are definitely a lot of positives business-wise that can come out of Punk and the Elite/the locker room making amends and doing business together. Whether Punk can get to a point where he can be in the locker room week after week as a regular or if he can be a part-timer that comes in for a few big programs is probably an open question.

If I was Khan, though, with TV negotiations upcoming, and with ticket sales trending down on the whole for a while now, I’d be looking to make a Punk return happen.

Sales have been up again lately. And last time tk build the whole show around Punk he got viewers but then Punk got Injhred and Dynamite had no story for it.


Then he returned and same thing again. Punk hurt more than he helped because he blew up a year worth of stories.

They were doing ratings as good as Punks before. But after Punk they were left scrambling to fix all the meases he left.he caused long term damagw

[Dub H]

Dec 30, 2022 15:00:21 GMT -5 Fade said:

Dec 30, 2022 14:49:15 GMT -5 Kalmia said:

I don't think anyone has even hinted that Punk is universally hated. He's always had people who like him. He even posted a photo with the Bucks on his Instagram before all this happened.

He's always been divisive though. He's always rubbed people the wrong way and never really seemed to care if he does. You're never going to have a fully harmonious locker room where everyone loves each other, but they have to be willing to let things go and work together.

I think that's where Punk can be a problem to a locker room. You don't want to cause a situation where it's people who support Punk against people who don't.

f***ing insane how it went from “All Friends Wrestling” to “Who got into a fight in AEW today?” for a minute there.

Seems like everything’s mellowed out..

And short of Miro being unhappy ,thing seems to be really happy again.


I wonder what happened?

[Deleted]

Even if Punk gets visited by three ghosts and goes through a Scrooge-like redemption for himself, that doesn't change the fact that he's still in his mid 40's and injury prone.

I'm sorry, but no sane businessman is going to light his company on fire for the short-term gains that CM Punk provides.
M

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Dec 31, 2022 12:20:54 GMT -5 @thelongandtheshort said:

Even if Punk gets visited by three ghosts and goes through a Scrooge-like redemption for himself, that doesn't change the fact that he's still in his mid 40's and injury prone.

I'm sorry, but no sane businessman is going to light his company on fire for the short-term gains that CM Punk provides.
M

What about the son of a sane businessman?

[bearned]

Dec 30, 2022 11:56:00 GMT -5 Feargus McReddit said:

Dec 30, 2022 11:50:38 GMT -5 Final Countdown Jones said:

Putting aside the actual merits of what he did or how hollow and laughable this is, if Punk is going to cause huge press shitstorms and assault co-workers, then he's in fact going to hurt ticket sales. Punk was not the only top act left off the card for months over his actions and it set in motion storyline f***eries that left a lot of the show significantly worse off for so long it's only now finally recovering from that. Punk's behavior in fact made hi ma liability to selling tickets.

I’d like to remind people that the suspensions of Punk, Omega and the Bucks lead to Jon Moxley still to this day not being able to take the vacation he’s earned pretty much since the first year of the company, so much so they had to hire his wife to travel with him. This along with Khan basically saying “Danielson, Hangman and others stepped up to enter the tournament we had to scramble to make towards a show that was likely originally supposed to be the crowning of MJF”.

To say it’s just Jericho is blatantly ignoring a bunch of context.

Just going to say here that ‘hiring his wife to travel with him’ suggests that Renee is just a sympathy hire and not an extremely accomplished wrestling broadcaster in he own right…Maybe that’s not what you mean but it does come across a little off to me.

[Feargus McReddit]

Dec 31, 2022 18:15:50 GMT -5 bearned said:

Dec 30, 2022 11:56:00 GMT -5 Feargus McReddit said:

I’d like to remind people that the suspensions of Punk, Omega and the Bucks lead to Jon Moxley still to this day not being able to take the vacation he’s earned pretty much since the first year of the company, so much so they had to hire his wife to travel with him. This along with Khan basically saying “Danielson, Hangman and others stepped up to enter the tournament we had to scramble to make towards a show that was likely originally supposed to be the crowning of MJF”.

To say it’s just Jericho is blatantly ignoring a bunch of context.

Just going to say here that ‘hiring his wife to travel with him’ suggests that Renee is just a sympathy hire and not an extremely accomplished wrestling broadcaster in he own right…Maybe that’s not what you mean but it does come across a little off to me.

That’s fair and even if it wasn’t intended that way, I can totally see how it could.

Like, Renee was totally going to be hired by AEW but I’d argue she was hired early basically because Moxley wasn’t taking a break.

[The Captain]

I think Renee would've ended up in AEW even earlier than she did if not for the lengthy non-compete to get out of her WWE contract.