Speak of the devil himself!

Jim Cornette reviews the segment (spoiler, he loves it) and follows up with opinions and information about the "melee" that occurred later.

There are more details coming out, but it looks like the situation occurred over a fairly long period of time. I'm trying to sort through the news, but there are wildly different stories. his is what I'm gathering is the current story:

1. The Young Bucks and Omega were pounding on Punk's locker room door, he didn't answer.

2. They eventually kicked the door in, Punk, a dog, Ace Steel, and Ace Steel's wife.

3. One of the Young Bucks threw a punch, and Punk smashed him.

4. Ace Steel was upset because his wife was in the room and then viciously attacked the other Young Buck with a chair and bit Kenny Omega.

5. Jericho eventually calmed everyone down.

6. Police were said to be involved. But when contacted, police denied this report.

7. Suspensions have been handed out to Kenny Omega, Matt and Nick Jackson, Cutler, Pat Buck, Christopher Daniels, and Michael Nakazawa. Ace Steel is likely released, and Punk might be released as well. Also, CM Punk has an injury, although it's not certain how severe.

I'm sure we'll find out tonight or tomorrow. For all I know, this could all be a work. I have no idea. But, it's not like these sorts of fights don't have a history of happening, although they seem to be much less frequent these days.

All I'm going to say is it'd be a shame if Punk got released, he's the one who got me back into pro-wrestling last year.

I also have no idea what is going on, but I think we can agree tonight's Dynamite should be very interesting.

Jim Cornette liked the segment because Jim Cornette has a similar personality to Punk. If he feels he's been wronged, vindicating himself is his #1 priority. And I'm not saying he's wrong. But, that's probably not the guy you want as the face of your organization. Punk did not do what was... best for business.

My guess is that Punk will be gone, again, because of the kind of person he is. If any of those guys wants to stay, they're going to have to do a lot of apologizin'. And I don't see Punk doing that. I would guess that Punk thinks he's right and would sooner leave AEW than say otherwise. Plus the injury makes him a little more expendable. It could just be bad luck, but with two injuries in three matches back, it's a bit questionable whether or not he's worth the trouble.

This could be AEW's finger poke of doom, where everything starts to spiral out of control. Or, it could be their Montreal Screwjob. A case where they take lemons and make lemonade. Time will tell. 

Mostly I posted the clips because the moment I saw the CM Punk interview I was reminded of Jim Cornette.

I also seem to see pro-wrestling from a different angle than most of the fans. Most of the fans I see are concerned with how a company should be run, and how things should be booked, how wrestlers should behave. I’m mostly concerned about how entertaining the drama and conflict is going to be. So when a lot of people see this conflict, they’re like “Oh no! This is all wrong! Can’t have this! Fire everyone! ” And I’m the opposite, I want to see the conflict and drama. And I’d think it would be a big shame if they were fired.

I mean, I’m not a pure “I only care about what I watch, and the backstage stuff is none of my business” - I don’t like the bullies and I don’t like seeing people lose their jobs (“Dey turk der jerbs!”). So I’m a bit guilty as well, I’d like to not care about that stuff, but I do.

I like some juicy back stage gossip as much as the next guy. And, personally I have no real investment in how they run their company. But, to fans who care about the program, this kind of stuff is probably a negative. ECW and WCW were a drama gold mine, but eventually that led to the in ring product suffering.

Well it seems the suspensions are real since none of the wrestlers involved were on Dynamite last night. Yet here is the thing, last night was an excellent episode of Dynamite. Most seem to agree it was the best episode in weeks, so hopefully they can keep it up next week, and the following week at Grand Slam.

Maybe when the wrestlers involved start returning they decide to turn it into a work, for ratings. Last night got them a slight boost in ratings, so maybe they go with it to keep interest going, who knows it is wrestling after all.

Kevin Owens is the best promo since Mick Foley. Only possible exception is CM Punk, and if you're counting non-wrestlers, Paul Heyman. Since Papa H took the reigns off, he's been on another level. Needs to be champion within a year.

Raw has been really good this week so far, but god damn three hours is a long time. 

Yeah, Kevin Owens is the best and Raw has been so much better the last month or so. 

Honestly, a lot of the backstage shit with AEW is making me less interested. Not that it's not compelling, but shitheel CM punk is ruining everything it seems. I actually really like(d) CM Punk a lot and genuinely felt his run in AEW was pretty great. Great promos, great feuds, great matches. I genuinely loved it. But then he causes more shit, stirs up more drama, and continues to act like a petulant brat about everything. 

When he was railing against WWE for their terrible shit I was 100% on his side. WE saw it happen and we all know about WWE's backstage nonsense so I was on board. But then he comes to AEW and the same shit happens? Bro, Punk's the common factor here. I liked him a lot in terms of his skill and workrate but holy hell he is a garbage person. And because of him 'confronting' the Elite backstage, now we lose the bucks and Omega (The latter of which is known to be one of the nicest guys in wrestling and easily one of the best workers) for an unknown amount of time. Absolute garbage. punk needs to go the hell away. Wrestling was fine without him and if he's gonna drive a wedge between everyone else and fuck up the show for the rest of the talent...then he can go away. I don't need his immature ass ruining the company. 

Punk's run in AEW has been a bit weird to me. Not necessarily bad, and admittedly I didn't see a lot of it, but it kind of felt like it didn't fit in with the overall program. It had a different tone, and it didn't really tie into the other things going on at the time. Like, if you didn't watch AEW in general and only watched Punk's segments they would just stand on their own. A lot of AEW's stuff weaves in and out, but Punk's stuff was very focussed. Not necessarily good or bad, but just a bit off. I think his stuff with Kingston was really good, because they're two really strong and kind of abrasive personalities and it's fun to watch them clash. The MJF program was also great, but it seems incomplete. They were obviously going somewhere with MJF cutting a Punk style pipe bomb, but it got derailed by the injury, and now by this. The page stuff I don't think really worked well. When Punk won the title, it should have been against someone that people disliked. Page's run wasn't going great, but I don't think anyone really wanted to see him fail and felt kind of bad that things weren't really clicking. So CM Punk winning wasn't the feel good moment it should have been.

I have mixed feelings on the backstage stuff. He doesn't seem like the type that would just make shit up out of nowhere, so I assume there is some reason that he feels the Bucks were trying to sort of bury him backstage. Doesn't necessarily mean they did, but there's some kind of basis. He had a legit gripe about Hangman too. I agree with most of what he said, based on my knowledge. Also, I think pretty much everyone agrees that the Bucks came to his locker room for what it's worth. But, he said if people had issues with him they should talk to him directly, which is kind of what they did.

The main thing is that, at a certain point, you have to pick which battles are worth fighting. He's gotten pretty much what everything he's wanted when he was in WWE. He was undeniably the face of the company. He's the champion, and they even kept the belt on him while he was out, whereas the WWE didn't even focus on him when he was champion. Khan was 100% behind him. He seemed to have a great deal of say in who he worked with or didn't. They hired his trainer/buddy so they could work together on screen, and both make $. He's in his dream scenario. Only problem is that a couple of guys (according to him) blame him for burying another guy. Even assuming that's true, is it worth doing what he did? He's making the company look bad by publicly shitting on some of their top stars, and instead of taking time to promote the things that happened on the show, like MJF's return, he overshadowed everything they did that night. And he can't even claim he was being "the voice of the voiceless" because these were just personal grievances. And worst to me, it was really disrespectful to Tony Khan. I'm obviously not a huge fan of his, but I feel for him here. He's been giving Punk everything he wants, and in return, he puts Tony Khan in a no win situation in a very public high pressure setting. Even when Tony stepped in to say that what happened with Cabana was all him, Punk shut him up. Here's the guy that's giving you everything you wanted, and that's what he gets. Makes you understand why Vince was often a prick. Cause a lot of people will take advantage of kindness.

I wouldn't go as far to say Punk's a garbage person. Again, I think he's a lot like Jim Cornette. I think he's smart, and right on a lot of things, and when he feels he's right he's not going to back down at all. And for both Cornette and Punk, that has made them popular and entertaining characters. But while Cornette's personality has made him successful in his own projects, its also made him very hard to work with, and led to a lot of promotions preferring to cut ties with him. Same thing seems to be happening with Punk.

I'd like to see Punk stay signed, because I still want to Danielson and Punk have the feud they're capable of, as the WWE one wasn't treated as a main event level program and had too much AJ Lee stuff (love her but she wasn't needed when you had a feud with the guys who should have been booked as the Rock and Austin of that period). And, I think he can be a great asset to the company in a non-wrestling role. I think CM Punk as an authority figure or in a Paul Heyman role could be amazing if done right. But, north of 40 with his second major injury in three matches it's hard to argue that it's worth the headache. 

Completely agree about CM Punk. When he first railed against WWE I genuinely did not understand it as he seemed to have been given everything from them and became a huge star. After watching/listening to the interview he did with Colt Cabana on all the things that happened to him in the WWE, I understood his anger and even felt for the dude.

However, what he did in AEW was just BS on his part. To crap on everyone the way he did during the media scrum, embarrassing the company in the process, was uncalled for. It effects not just the Elite members, but everyone who works at the company. At a time when they needed momentum, he might have done more to hurt them than anything else with the backstage fight and all these suspensions.

Honestly, I hope he doesn't return. How can he ever be trusted on a mic again? Hell, how can he be trusted to stay healthy with two back to back injuries? He just ain't worth the hassle in my opinion.