It has emerged that a meeting intended to bury the hatchet between CM Punk and The Elite was canceled in the days leading up to All In.
On September 1st, Tony Khan announced that the company had reached a decision to fire Punk. This was due to an incident that took place at the Wembley Stadium event which saw Punk and Jack Perry get into an altercation backstage, reportedly ending with Punk trying to put Perry in a chokehold before the pair were broken up.
This wasn’t the first backstage incident involving Punk during his time in AEW. The media scrum following the 2022 edition of All Out infamously saw the Second City Saint go on a rant about several of his co-workers including Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks. This led to a brawl between all four men and others in the locker room.
Ever since the incident, there has been bad blood between the two camps. However, it seems that efforts were recently made to patch things up. According to Haus of Wrestling, a meeting was set up between The Elite, Punk, and Khan in the days before All In. However, it was reportedly called off at the last minute “by The Elite’s camp”.
AEW All In incident caused Tony Khan to “fear for his life”
The latest edition of Collision opened with a video from Tony Khan explaining that the decision to release CM Punk had been made following the advisement of a disciplinary committee.
He went on to give some details of the backstage incident, saying it not only endangered backstage staff but made him fear for his own safety and even his life.
AEW GM @TonyKhan opens #AEWCollisionpic.twitter.com/1UeMHipSsu
— AEW on TV (@AEWonTV) September 3, 2023
In recent news, Dave Meltzer revealed the terms The Young Bucks set in order to meet with CM Punk.