Tony Khan’s decision to show some backbone couldn’t have come at a worse time, as Sports Illustrated’s Justin Barrasso confirms that CM Punk and Jack Perry have been suspended following their reported confrontation at All In.
It’s unknown how long Punk and Perry will be shelved. But with both men set to potentially miss AEW’s next pay-per-view, All Out, in a few days, the big loser is everyone heading to Chicago to attend the Labor Day weekend tradition. Considering that Chi-Town is Punk’s hometown and, more importantly, a regular destination on AEW’s event schedule, punishing Punk penalizes that fanbase and those coming in from out of town.
So instead of suspension, which Tony Khan has yet to inform Punk of, according to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Khan must do the right thing and put the former AEW Champion to work.
Since AEW’s head honcho fancies himself as a student of the industry, now is a great time to draw from the Vince McMahon playbook of putting troubled stars in the ring long enough to get his and the crowd’s money’s worth.
In 1991, McMahon gave in to the Ultimate Warrior’s pay demands long enough to get him to appear at SummerSlam before dropping the hammer on Warrior after his match. Then, in 2006, McMahon suspended WWE and ECW Champion Rob Van Dam following a drug-related arrest. But before Van Dam’s suspension began, Van Dam was made to drop both titles.
There was also that time when Roman Reigns lost the WWE title at Money in the Bank in 2016 and was suspended the next day for failing a drug test, suggesting the company allowed Reigns to perform despite his infraction.
In this case, suspending or even releasing Punk should happen after All Out, where Khan can write him off with a loss to whoever his opponent might be. It beats letting down an audience that paid big bucks to see AEW’s top star.
However, if Punk disagrees with such a decision, then Khan needs to inform the audience that their homegrown hero chose not to perform based on his displeasure with the company’s creative plans.
Then, Punk, not the promotion, is the bad guy in this situation.
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