AEW Aired Security Footage Of CM Punk’s Backstage Fight, And It Couldn’t Have Gone Worse

AEW followed through on its promise. Just days after vowing to finally show the backstage ‘brawl’ that led to CM Punk’s firing, fans were treated to a little over a minute of footage from the now infamous altercation. It’ll be a bit before we know how the bold decision impacted ratings, but from a fan response perspective, it did not go well. At all. The move was almost unanimously criticized on social media with a strong majority agreeing it did a lot for current WWE employee CM Punk and was a big negative for everyone involved who actually still works at AEW.

For those of you out of the loop, let’s back up to last August. AEW was holding its biggest PPV ever in Wembley Stadium in London in front of more than 70,000 people. All In was meant to be a celebration of how far the company had come and how it was now a real competitor with WWE. Unfortunately, an altercation happened backstage between CM Punk, the company’s biggest star, and Jack Perry, not the company’s biggest star. Punk had reportedly told performers to stop using real glass in segments, and Perry, wrestling on the preshow, used real glass and shouted “cry me a river” into the camera.

After the match was over, there was an altercation backstage between CM Punk and Jack Perry over what was said. Punk then worked his own match with Samoa Joe, and within a week or so, he was officially fired. At the time, AEW owner Tony Khan said he felt his “life was in danger” during the altercation and said the footage was really bad. Fans, of course, loudly shouted they wanted to see it, but it wasn’t released. Punk then signed with WWE and despite an injury, has been on a tremendous run and looks like he’ll be in or near the main event scene for years to come.

The All In skirmish seemed a distant memory until Punk recently sat down for an interview with Ariel Helwani. During their conversation, the subject of the All In ‘brawl’ came up, and Punk gave his side of the story. He basically said he approached Perry after the incident and asked him why he did it. Perry told him to do something about it and he put him in a chokehold before it got broken up. Days later, AEW announced they would be showing the footage on Dynamite. Most fans assumed that must mean Punk was lying about what happened or there was some kind of big reveal coming, but then they showed the footage and it was almost exactly what Punk said happened, to the point where people are overlaying the interview with the footage. You can check it out below…

To say the response from wrestling fans and journalists is negative would be an all-time understatement. AEW is getting absolutely eviscerated on social media, and in person, the footage was met with many fans loudly shouting CM Punk. I’d link you to it, but AEW seems to be copyright striking them as soon as they go up. Many are calling the decision to show the footage a WCW 2000 move, which is a very pointed insult that references a time when the wrestling promotion started doing desperate and illogical things in an attempt to stay relevant like put The WCW Championship on actor David Arquette. But why is it so bad? People wanted to see the footage for months. Why are people so mad about them showing it? Let me break it down.

It Makes The People Still Working In AEW Look Bad

Let’s start with Jack Perry. I am absolutely not saying wrestlers should be having altercations and real fights backstage. Jack Perry didn’t throw a punch here, nor did he go seek out CM Punk and start anything. But whether it’s fair or not, he is a professional wrestler who needs to present an image of toughness in order to do his job. In what world is seeing him get shoved and put in a headlock before other people have to jump in good for his career? He is getting clowned online for losing this exchange with CM Punk, who is almost twenty years older than him. Whether AEW wants to admit it or not, they have now set him up to get teased by mean-spirited fans about this for years to come.

And then there’s AEW’s owner Tony Khan. He told people he feared for his life at the time, and this is the footage we get? I’m not defending physical violence. It can be scary and trigger all kinds of fear and trauma responses. Your body reacts how it reacts, but the average person in close proximity to one dude putting another dude in a headlock would not say they feared for their life. Now stories are coming out that there was allegedly more to the footage than what was shown, and that the part that wasn’t shown features Punk threatening Tony Khan. Maybe that’s true, but now people are just demanding to see that footage, which they’re allegedly not going to show. So, where were we going with this?

Also, this video doesn’t exactly make the company’s management look great either. Let’s say you run a business and your best employee who makes you the most money has a well-known temper. Now let’s say at the biggest, most important event you’ve ever had, a separate run of the mill employee publicly insults your best employee. What’s the right course of action? Should you proactively announce management is handling the situation and separate the employees or should you sit there and watch as they find each other and start shouting in a very public space? Everyone watching All In knew Jack Perry just threw a middle finger at CM Punk. How did someone in management not realize there was about to be a huge problem?

It Makes CM Punk, A WWE Employee, Look Honest

I’m not defending CM Punk here. He has a long history of backstage drama and pouring gasoline on fires he should let burn out. He clearly went looking for Jack Perry, clearly confronted him, shoved him and put him in a chokehold. All of this is wrong, especially for someone in their mid-40s who is supposed to be a backstage leader. But AEW releasing this video when they released the video makes him look honest.

Let’s say AEW released this footage immediately after the altercation happened. CM Punk had already been involved in a separate backstage fight, and while this isn’t exactly a Haku-level brawl, you could see how they’d want to rid themselves of an employee who kept finding trouble. This video clearly shows he was the physical instigator.

But AEW didn’t release this video after it happened. They only released the video after CM Punk went on a podcast and explained what happened. Therefore, the assumption in everyone’s mind was that we were about to see something that contradicted what Punk said. We didn’t. It was like blow-for-blow exactly what he said happened, which means people’s collective response was that he was telling the truth. 

Oh and by the way, since this is a wrestling business where image matters, him shoving another wrestler, putting him in a chokehold and security jumping in doesn’t exactly hurt the image he’s trying to project. 

It Does Nothing To Build For The Future

AEW has said they showed the footage in order to help drive interest to this week’s episode of Dynamite and the upcoming PPV. The Young Bucks, who presented the footage on screen, also attempted to tie it into an ongoing storyline. They said they only lost their match at All In to FTR because they were distracted by the backstage brawl. They accused FTR, who are friends with Punk in real life, of masterminding the whole thing to gain the upperhand and said they’ll win the rematch at the next PPV.

I get where they’re trying to go with this. They have certainly drawn more eyeballs to this feud than would have been there without the CM Punk tie-in, but all anyone is talking about is CM Punk and what happened, not the match. The tie-in here is extremely flimsy and seven months too late, and even worse, when The Young Bucks attacked FTR later in the show, the crowd started chanting CM Punk, who will not be at the PPV and will almost certainly never step foot in an AEW ring again. Is anyone more invested in who wins between Young Bucks and FTR because of this?

The point of wrestling is to get fans excited about what’s coming next week. It’s about promoting your own stars and your own storylines so that people want to tune in to see what happens. This wasn’t that. This was a cheap excuse to use CM Punk to try and draw some eyeballs, and while I’m sure it worked, all those eyeballs saw was good news for CM Punk and bad news for everyone currently employed by AEW.