Tony Khan talks CM Punk & the All Out investigation, but doesn’t say much

We’re just days away from AEW’s annual fall PPV, Full Gear.

For most fans, that means looking forward to what should be night of good-to-great matches from Tony Khan’s fed. For a subset of us, there’s also been anticipation about how media events with TK and others on the roster would go after the explosive post-All Out scrum and fallout.

That latter group got didn’t have to wait until Saturday night, because TK held a conference call with the media to talk about Full Gear today (Nov. 17).

AEW did inform participants on the call to limit their question to this weekend’s event, but Khan still fielded questions about the men at the center of what’s now known as “Brawl Out”. His answers weren’t terribly substantive, but they did give us some new information. They were also fielded a little more adeptly than how TK dealt with similar ones in his controversial interview with Ariel Helwani.

Jon Alba of AdFreeShows asked about Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks — the Executive Vice-Presidents who were suspended for their role in a backstage fight with CM Punk in the early hours of Sept. 5, and who will return at Full Gear to challenge Death Triangle for the Trios titles they vacated after becoming the first to hold them at All Out. TK mostly hyped Saturday’s match. But in saying he couldn’t comment on the investigation into the events of Labor Day weekend, he for the first time acknowledged there was an investigation into the events of Labor Day weekend.

Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston provided the CM Punk question, asking Khan if the two-time AEW World champ was done with the company. It mostly netted another no comment, but TK made sure to praise his possibly former star:

“I can’t comment on that. I have nothing but positive things to say about the contributions CM Punk has made in AEW on screen and I certainly have a lot of positive things to say about the things he did in AEW to date, but I do understand why you’d ask and I appreciate you asking.”

That wasn’t the final Punk query, however. Wrestling Inc’s Nick Hausman asked Khan why he didn’t cut Punk off during his tirade about Colt Cabana, Hangman Page & The Elite. The AEW owner, president & head of creative said he didn’t know what Punk was going to say, and that he was thinking ahead to other wrestlers taking part in the scrum after Punk. Beyond that, he again declined to comment.

The last report on Punk’s status with AEW claimed the two parties were negotiating a buyout of his contract, but the duration of a non-compete agreement was a sticking point. Punk hasn’t commented on the situation at all, despite returning to the public eye last week.