Eric Bischoff has claimed that CM Punk is doing Tony Khan few favours with his recent conduct, adding that he even feels bad for the AEW boss.
Despite CM Punk winning the AEW World Championship for a second time in front of his home crowd, AEW All Out feels secondary to the backstage chaos that followed it.
Not only did Punk score a memorable win, after the match he was confronted by a returning MJF who was revealed to be the mystery man who had won the Casino Ladder Match earlier in the night. With victory, MJF earned himself a future shot at the AEW World Championship, and bitter rival CM Punk.
However, at the post-show media scrum, Punk launched into a tirade against AEW EVP’s, Hangman Adam Page and others while Tony Khan could only watch on. His comments sparked a brawl backstage which is sure to have ramifications that are felt for a long time to come.
Speaking during a recent AdFreeShows special looking at the fallout, Eric Bischoff described the media scums as a “f*cking joke,” adding that this was the most dysfunction he’d seen in wrestling since the days of WCW.
“So rather than put the focus on that [MJF’s return], and using the scrum, which is a complete f*cking joke by the way, but using this scrum opportunity to create some buzz, rather than focusing on MJF. What does he do? He goes after The Young Bucks. He goes after Hangman Page. Better be part of a plan, it better be. We better be seeing teams lining up now.
If it’s something like that, like if it’s something like that, I’m going to have some patience. Because we need to wait and see how that plays out. We can’t judge that, you can’t judge a movie before they shoot the first frame, can’t do that. But if it’s not that, it’s the most dysfunction we’ve seen since WCW’s most dysfunctional days.”
Bischoff, who has been highly critical of Tony Khan in recent months also admitted that he felt bad for the AEW President.
“I feel bad for Tony Khan right now. In many respects he’s setting himself up for this, whatever this is or ends up being, but he’s paying that cat lots of money. He’s paying CM Punk a fortune and CM Punk is cutting his balls off. Not only in front of everybody else in the the roster, the executive team, the production team.
Oh, by the way, his business partners, you know, like Warner Discovery. Potential advertisers, potential sponsors, maybe even if need be a potential network to sell their show to, should something go wrong with the Warner Discovery merger. For what reason?
If there was money in it, if it was part of a story, and everybody I just mentioned, including TV partners, are on board and understand what you’re doing, have at it man could work. I’ll be your biggest fan, I’ll support taking a risk like that. Because you have to take big risks to gain big rewards you just do and not all of them work out.
But you got to try and if that’s what they’re doing, hats off if everybody’s on board. But if not, and Punk is just venting his spleen spreading the heat around the entire roster instead of focusing on his opponent, which is business. Man, I feel bad for Tony, because that’s the kind of thing you can’t get back. Now, unless the story is f*cking phenomenal. You know, that would do it. But if the story is not phenomenal, it’s really really taking ridiculous liberties for no real reason.”
The WWE Hall of Famer was then asked about life in WCW and whether it was a communal effort, or wrestlers simply trying to make as much money as they could. Bischoff explained that while things were positive initially, that dynamite began to change, and this created a different kind of pressure.
“Well, it’s all the above, you know, there were certain times and with certain groups of the talents, it was a very collaborative kind of fun, positive. You know, when Nitro first became a thing, and 95, that was a real high level, because people at WCW, the executive side of things, the production team, even the talent, they’re getting primetime television. It was a big damn deal, so morale was high for a long time. And even, you know, going into 96, when we bought Scott and Kevin, and morale was at a real peak.
Now, it started to become more challenging as time went on for some of the same reasons, you know, that Tony’s feeling the pressure right now, you know. Guys that were long-time WCW, you know, talent had been with the company for a long time are seeing guys that are coming in from the outside, making more money and getting more TV time.”
The former WCW President went on to compare what he experienced, to what is happening in AEW now, reiterating that he feels sorry for Tony Khan.
“Guess what happens then, you know, it starts with a little bit of a murmur, a little bit of chatter here and there, nothing too serious. And then it starts getting a little louder and a little more obvious. And then people aren’t afraid to talk about it anymore, and then they’re talking to the media. I’ve lived through all of this.
One of the things that I found really interesting watching this back, is the irony. You know, here’s irony, in the sense that CM Punk is talking about how unprofessional you know, The Young Bucks are and by default, by the way, Tony Khan, as he’s sitting right there, undermining the company talking about how unprofessional, someone else is.
Don’t you find that ironic? Don’t you find it ironic that here’s CM Punk whose legend, if you will, has lived on primarily because of the wrestling internet universe in the people that are supporting him. And now he’s screaming, he’s yelling at reporters for reporting lies. I mean, I find it ironic. And I have to admit, it makes me laugh, how does that feel?
But at the same time, I do feel for Tony, I really do. This is not you know, when, regardless of whether he inherited the money or won in a lottery or earned it by, you know, figuring out a cool way to make a new widget, it doesn’t f*cking matter. It’s his money, and he’s putting it up, and he’s paying people a lot of money. And all I keep saying this, it better, better be for a good reason. Otherwise, if I’m Tony Khan, that’s the last time CM Punk sees a red light on while I’m giving them a check.”
It has since been reported that CM Punk could be gone from AEW as soon as the end of September 7th, while the full list of personnel suspended by the company in the wake of the incident has also been revealed.
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