And the saga continues, at least for another day.
Last night’s AEW Dynamite featured the Young Bucks airing footage from the CM Punk and Jack Perry scuffle that took place at All In London back in August. The decision to air the incident, which led to Punk’s termination from AEW, was to help set up the Young Bucks and FTR AEW tag team title match that takes place on Dynasty. Today, a new report has surfaced revealing the backstage reaction across AEW and WWE.
According to Fightful Select, most of the reactions from AEW side were tepid, with many saying they knew it was a “one-night ratings ploy.” There were some talks of the mood decreasing after the footage aired and that it brought on more “social media bullshit” dread. However, there was a general response from AEW talent that they do think it could have added to Dynasty. As noted earlier, the idea was Tony Khan’s after the comments made by Punk on Ariel Helwani’s podcast and the shots taken by WWE to AEW on WrestleMania XL media week.
PW Torch reported this morning that the Young Bucks were not in favor of airing the footage. Fightful says that is untrue and they were “fine with doing the angle.” FTR were given a heads up as to where the angle was going and AEW’s decision to promote it. They did eventually sign off it, with the thought being that it could add some social buzz to their match. There are no issues between CM Punk and FTR.
Regarding WWE’s reaction, Fightful says that there were plenty of people talking about the situation, but no one who was particularly surprised as it wasn’t anything anyone didn’t expect. There is no heat on CM Punk from WWE. There were a few WWE wrestlers who thought the video was a “self-own” and others who said they just watched out of curiosity. A name from both WWE and AEW said this is no worse than anything that happened during the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW.
No one in AEW believes this is a company killer, but some do feel that the time could have gone to AEW talent. There was a feeling that the entire thing was a “no-win” situation.