This mess needs to be fixed now.
The return of C.M. Punk to All Elite Wrestling (AEW) was never going to be an easy process, but in the span of a few days we’ve seen things go from being fine to an absolute mess. Now the company sits at a crossroads with owner and promoter Tony Khan needing to step in and fix the problem of his own making.
Everything came to a head at AEW Collision in Greensboro on Saturday night. Punk stood in the ring after the cameras went off and delivered a “shoot” (real) promo to the crowd that slammed fellow wrestler “Hangman” Adam Page in a very bizarre way, considering Punk and Page hadn’t been involved in a story angle for months.
“Earlier today I went to a local supermarket and I figured out why they call him “Hangman.” It’s because the pegs in the toy aisle are full of Hangman action figures because nobody wants to buy them. He’s a peg-warmer, unlike me who moves merchandise and pops ratings, and sells toys.”
This was especially pointed considering it’s a fairly well-known fact that Page lives in Greensboro, North Carolina — essentially making this a home show for the wrestler, and here was Punk basically saying he’s not popular in his own town and nobody cares about him.
The weird promo is an extension of the drama which occurred in 2022 when backstage friction between Page and Punk boiled over, in part leading to the massive brawl between Punk, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks which had all the wrestlers pulled from TV for considerable time, and Punk step away for almost a year with an injury — unclear if he’d ever return to AEW.
When Punk came back it’s been reported that part of the deal was that he’d have creative control over AEW Collision, essentially making it his own show with his own hand-picked talent, and the ability to run the show how he saw fit. Now it appears that’s extending beyond the on-screen product, and into backstage politics.
This week details emerged that Page was set to film a promo at the Greensboro Coliseum for future use, presumably because it was easy to get him in front of cameras with his house across town. Upon learning this information Punk banned Page from the backstage area, forcing AEW production to film the promo offsite instead.
Punk also banned Ryan Nemeth from Collision for past tweets in which Nemeth called Punk “soft,” as well as barred director of talent relations Christopher Daniels from the show — citing his involvement in the 2022 brawl as a reason he shouldn’t be backstage.
All the while upper AEW management (specifically Tony Khan) has remained silent on the issue, choosing to let this play out amongst his talent — which isn’t working.
Punk reportedly apologized to Page via text message, saying his promo didn’t come off as he intended — but that didn’t do a lot to solve the core issue at the heart of all this, which is the massive unresolved schism in the AEW locker room between those who are Team Punk, and those who are Team Elite.
While some of this can be chalked up to coworkers simply not liking each other, which happens in every workplace in the world — this has become a pervasive distraction at the worst time. This is when AEW should really be putting the pedal down and trying to gain massive ground on WWE in ratings and attention, and their door is wide open. A perfect storm has emerged where more eyes will be on AEW than ever as the company runs All-In later this month in front of a massive crowd at London’s Wembley Stadium, while wrestling fans are also growing weary of WWE’s “Bloodline” storyline involving Roman Reigns, which has become stagnant. A huge, killer story involving the company’s biggest stars could be AEW’s “nWo moment,” where WCW began to beat then-WWF in the ratings — instead that’s not coming to pass.
Now, at this time where everyone in AEW needs to be pulling in the same direction, two massive forces are still unable to work together in any capacity. We’ve yet to see any in-ring work between Punk and The Elite, with all signs pointing to that not being a reality because of their intense dislike of each other. Meanwhile management seems fine keeping the two biggest elements of their company separate, even if that means settling for crumbs over the entire load of bread that’s available to them.
Moreover, Punk’s control of Collision is causing huge business problems. It’s one thing to not want someone backstage who you don’t like, it’s another to refuse to even have a promo shot in the same building — forcing producers and camera operators to move off-site just to do their jobs. It’s stupid high school drama that these men should be able to settle for the good of the company, but they can’t.
It plays into one of Khan’s best and worst tendencies as an owner: Worker freedom. It’s amazing that AEW wrestlers are given the creative control to carve their own paths and pitch their own stories, but that can also be a huge problem when there’s no authority to step in when things take a turn for the worst, as they have with Punk banning talent from Collision.
There are things one has to accept when it comes to C.M. Punk: For better or worse he’s always going to speak his mind, and at this point in his career he’s not going to play ball and be a company guy. That can bring phenomenal highs and verisimilitude to professional wrestling, but when the backstage environment is poor it leads to energy being spent fighting each other, rather than bolstering the company, and that’s just sad.
We know that the best Punk and The Elite can manage is to tolerate each other. Perhaps there’s a way that can be enough, but right now it isn’t working — and Tony Khan has to find a way to rectify these issues before they spiral out of control. Without carefully managing the egos at play this is the kind of drama that really could tear the company apart when contracts come up for renewal, with talent perhaps opting to go elsewhere, rather than deal with the Punk vs. Elite drama that creates a toxic work environment.
For now Khan is okay with “people talking about AEW,” but that’s just not good enough. With each backstage story emerging to take more and more attention away from the in-ring product of AEW and puts the focus on the worst aspects of the company. Something has to change.
