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If there’s one thing Jon Moxley is correct about among his many comments about AEW, CM Punk, fans, etc. on his most recent appearance on his wife Renee Paquette’s podcast, it’s that it has to be frustrating to see a continued fixation on the controversies in and around AEW vs. the matches that happen in and around AEW, including the excellently fun Hijo del Vikingo vs. Kenny Omega match a few weeks back.
What Moxley fails to see in my opinion, perhaps because he’s too close to the situation, is that the fixation exists because absolutely nothing has been resolved in the eyes of the fans. CM Punk is (choose your own adventure here) beloved, hated, ostracized, injured, getting a buyout, returning, pissing off people, beloved by fans, loved by younger talents in the locker room, hated by the circle surrounding The Elite and/or Chris Jericho or perhaps raising Alpacas in the Himalayas.
Why are people talking about this situation? Nothing has been resolved. So, if you think fans aren’t going to fixate on that, because they either (choose your own adventure) love Punk and want to see him back, hate Punk and want to see him gone, blame the Elite for the situation, love the Elite and want to see them victorious in this political battle, and/or just want to see it resolved so they can get back to watching the storylines and/or find all this stuff as or more fascinating as the AEW product.
I wrote a long time ago that in my opinion, AEW should have suspended everyone who was scrapping in Punk’s locker room, fined them whatever amount of money and then told every single one of them they were going to stop going into business for themselves and instead wrestle each other for as long as AEW wanted, because they were paid by AEW and they were now required to go make AEW money. If they didn’t want to do so, they could sit at home and be iced out.
I don’t really believe the average fan at this point, beyond bottom feeding fans on social media who live for being fire ants that consume garbage and hope to create even more garbage out of it, cares about any of this anymore. Fans just want to turn on their TV or buy a ticket or a PPV and from that point on until the end of the show, they just want their wrestling to be fun.
CM Punk was being blamed for Colt Cabana being shifted over to ROH? Well, Tony Khan is on record saying it wasn’t true, so either call Khan a liar or drop it. End of story.
CM Punk vented his spleen in a media scrum? Well, whether you thought it was a jerk move or he was 100% right for doing it, or you land somewhere in the middle, but the second there was a fight backstage, everyone had some level of responsibility.
Now, it’s a chicken and the egg situation.
In the game of Clue here, either someone lied about CM Punk and he lost his sh** over it or Punk wrongly accused the Elite of lying about him and they confronted him or whatever the latest theory this week is. We know this.
Each side is going to continue to blame the other, whether it be publicly, privately or perceived, and eventually, in some fashion, the other side is going to respond. We know this.
The problem is no matter who is/was (will be?) at fault, no one has been able to move forward and past it.
There’s a narrative that everyone hates CM Punk. As someone who speaks to a lot of talents, I call shenanigans on that. There are a lot of talents who liked working with Punk and would be happy to work with him again, but they aren’t going to publicly say it, because nothing has been resolved and the last thing they want is to end up on the wrong side publicly with The Elite, Chris Jericho, etc. and find themselves iced out politically when all they want to do is go wrestle and get paid a lot of money to do so. I totally understand that.
What the amended statement should be is that there’s a circle of talents in the company, who don’t want to work with Punk, but it’s not every single talent who ever walked the aisle in AEW. There are some who have (in their minds, correctly) vilified him for verbally attacking and physically assaulting The Elite in that locker room. Honestly? I get it. You back your friends and you back who brought you to the dance. It doesn’t matter in their eyes why it started, only that someone they care about got hurt - and I respect that they feel that way. You should be loyal to your friends - that’s the one quality CM Punk was always known for all through his career, so if you liked that Punk was doing that, then you should appreciate that The Elite’s circle is doing the same, even if you don’t agree with their side.
The problem to me isn’t who likes or hates CM Punk, since he, like many stars, are always going to be polarizing. The Elite can be polarizing. So can Roman Reigns and John Cena. ALL stars are polarizing. It’s that all the issues are preventing AEW from being all that AEW can be, because every 10 seconds on the journey, they seemingly have to stop yet another forest fire. Luke Skywalker never would have gotten off Tatooine if every three scenes, he had to return home yet again because of another issue.
I’m not placing blame here because in reality, nothing is ever 100% black or white: everything has shades of grey, but at this point months later, it's pretty obvious that the two sides, like the Republicans and the Democrats, believe, in their heart or hearts, that they are right. So, the other side is wrong. There's certainly enough of an argument for each side to argue their side forever, but the question is, at this point, what is the argument doing for everyone involved?
The problem with all of it is that it just’s all created a logjam where everyone is running the same circles again and again and again. Dave Meltzer went on his message board and spoke critically of CM Punk’s place in the build to the Jon Moxley squash and rematch that precipitated the media scrum massacre and backstage brawl. Punk responds, defending himself. Moxley responds, giving his side that since he wasn’t under contract, he didn’t have to do a damn thing for Punk or AEW (and whether anyone wants to admit it or not, Moxley was 100% right in what he said - he wasn’t required to do anything for AEW at that point if he didn’t wish to do so!), insulting Punk yet never mentioning him by name.
Where does any of this get AEW?
Nowhere.
Where does this get the AEW personalities involved?
A return to square one.
I don’t care who anyone feels are right and wrong in this situation, the reality is that the fact this situation is still smoking and exploding like a volcano waiting to engulf an entire Island months after the fact is ridiculous - does anyone think anyone would continue to play out this back and forth if they were working for Paul Levesque, Bill Watts, Vince McMahon, whoever?
The situation likely would have been stomped out and everyone would have gone back to work, just as Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart went back to work after Bret ripped a clump of his hair right off HBK’s scalp in a backstage brawl before a Raw taping.
There’s a scene in Goodfellas where Paulie, the mob boss, tells his underling Henry Hill that sooner or later, whether he likes it or not, he’s going to have to leave his side piece and go make nice with his wife. It doesn’t have to be today, but it’s going to have to happen. The end.
In this scenario, Tony Khan is Paulie and well, it doesn’t have to be today, but sooner or later, CM Punk is going to have to come back to AEW. If anyone else doesn’t like it, that’s fine, but they will have to deal with it
If anyone truly thinks AEW should just pay CM Punk the remainder of his contract through 2024 or 2025 or whatever and not get something out of it because there was a fight and Punk lost his cool during a media scrum just doesn’t see the reality of the situation - AEW should exist to make money as much as it should exist to make fans happy
Whether other people in the locker room hate him or not, CM Punk, by Tony Khan’s own words, made the company more money than any other talent via ticket sales, t-shirts, merchandise, PPV buys, etc. than anyone else. That didn’t go away because he lashed out and then got into a fight any more than everything The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega brought to the table when AEW launched should be thrown out because of the same locker room fight.
Punk vs. Hangman Page was the first seven figure house in AEW history. I think the world of Adam Page as a wrestler and have since he was wrestling on small shows held during Greg Price’s NWA Fanfest, but if it wasn’t CM Punk in that position, AEW may not have broken that mark on that PPV. Punk plus AEW made AEW money, and it will again, if and when something gets resolved, but something has to get resolved. If he's not getting fired, then he's got to go back to work, the same way The Elite had to go back to work.
For every person who wants to villainize Punk, let's put ourselves in his shoes. He came to AEW and did the opposite of what every other star usually does when they come into a place - make it about themselves. He worked with the younger stars and did so, with zero heat, until the decision was made to put the AEW title on him.
Then, he got hurt and worked to rehab his foot after he “pulverized the bones” - even appearing at media events for AEW while doing so and in extreme pain. Hell, his old boots won’t even fit, so he used Danhausen’s boots.
While all this is going on, he feels attacked and slighted - perhaps bringing up all the PTSD from the end of his WWE run, staph infection, walking out, legal fallout, podcast lawsuit, etc. - and finally loses it after getting hurt yet again. None of this absolves him, but if you look at the timeline, there’s a ton of compounding factors that lead to Mt. Punk exploded that night, which then led into the fight.
The problem is that everything that precipitated a pissed off, injured Punk acting out at the media scrum last year is still going on. Even if Punk was 100% wrong in placing the blame, at this point, the scab keeps getting ripped off and bleeds anew. Nothing has been resolved and keeps bubbling back to the surface and fans, especially fans who want to be entertained at the misery of others, will watch the remnants of the car wreck on the side of the road. Unfortunately, that’s human nature.
Now, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of The Young Bucks now. They have worked to help establish AEW, were intimately involved in the hiring of talents, creative, etc. and have bui lt a hell of anest for themselves there.
CM Punk comes in and eventually lashes out at you - and this is your company in your eyes and you set the table for him to return to wrestling and you get pissed he’s ripped you and your friends apart verbally for the entire world and internet to see.
You head to his locker room, there’s a fight and when the dust settles, everything the last few years you earned could be gone forever.
You’re hurt and you’re pissed and now there’s an investigation. No matter what happens, even if you go back to work, there’s got to be anger and PTSD there, especially since the situation isn’t really resolved and every 15 seconds, there’s a new social media controversy.
There’s no movement forward and every so often, the story comes back like Jason Voorhees and again, we are back to square one and for all the principles, they are back in that moment of anger that led to the scrum and the fight, instead of everyone putting their hearts and minds and bodies into trying to have the best matches possible, having the best show possible and making AEW as fun as possible for fans.
Instead, everyone is emotionally pulled back to that singular moment in time where all the frustration, rage and anger exploded. Pro Wrestlers or not, champions or not, EVPs or not, right or wrong or not, everyone here are all still human beings and I can’t imagine how emotionally exhausting this has to be for every single person involved, especially when they all just started this journey wanting to take bumps because they loved pro wrestling. They all hit the blessed place of making great money doing this - deservedly so - but that doesn't make this any less exhausting.
There was a time when he came in where CM Punk privately and I believe even openly talked about the idea of teaming with Bryan Danielson vs. The Young Bucks in AEW. Unfortunately for the fans, we’ll likely never see it, but I get why we won’t - but everyone involved has to, as Paulie said in Goodfellas, go home eventually - and going home in this instance is doing what everyone else in pro wrestling who’s ever had a fight or disagreement or problem with each other does - bite their lip and co-exist and go back to work, just like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels did and so many others also did.
After all, what happens if by some fluke of nature and time down the line, everyone at opposite ends are now all in WWE? Does anyone think for a second anyone will be able to say no to working together? Does anyone think Cody Rhodes has the veto power in WWE he may have had in AEW?
At the end of the day, everyone involved knows what the end result is - the waters calm after the storm.
There’s been a lot of talk about AEW getting another show on the weekends for Discovery. If I am AEW, I pitch and push for a 90 minute or two hour show and then I say the hell with it, I split the roster. Not an official brand split, but certain talents just work Wednesday and some just work the weekend show and let each show have their own storylines. Put Punk and whoever on one. Put The Elites, Moxley, Jericho, etc. on the other.
Then, as Dr. Serizawa said in Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla film, LET THEM FIGHT.
No, No, not in the street or even backstage.
Instead, the two sides can fight it out and see which of their visions of pro wrestling and pro wrestling matches can draw the best ratings, merchandise, ticket sales, etc. If no one involved is going to resolve their issues, then take all the bitterness and hatred out on each other by trying to outwork and outdraw the other, because that would be the best for every single one of these talented souls. Use everything to push the creative flow and in-ring product to the best of their abilities, fueled by competition of wanting to out-do the other guy. It would benefit everyone in AEW and the pro wrestling business.
Now, I don't think even that would 100% squash the exhausting process of seeing every little theory online worked over like this is the JFK investigation, but doesn’t having everyone just working their asses off and trying to put on the best show they can sound a lot more fun than playing pro wrestling Twitter whodunit?
It also might be the best therapy possible for everyone involved who need to be able to finally move on from one of the worst nights of their life.
That's what I want to see - everyone move forward and going back to what's best for themselves and AEW - making themselves and AEW fans happy.
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