10 AEW Wrestlers Tony Khan Totally FUMBLED
2. CM Punk
CM Punk was responsible for the actions of CM Punk, and by 2023, those actions were sackable offences that left Tony Khan with few options beyond the ones he eventually took. The fumble was not in letting CM Punk go (and indeed go back to WWE), but in allowing a situation with his biggest star to reach the point where everything became so untenable.
Khan's fumble was not being a more diligent man manager from the off. Who knows exactly when relations changed between Punk and The Elite from the heady days of 2021 when he was taking studio shots with The Young Bucks and having Twitter craic with Hangman Page? Not many folk, but Tony Khan should have been one of them. Who knows how different the Autumn of 2022 could have been had incidents never made it to television, or certain fires extinguished before they could burn relations to the ground.
To understand the value of Punk to your business is not to accept the rough with the smooth but to manage a monster so that everybody gets to win. It's not an easy tightrope to walk, but Tony Khan slipped off too late to clamber back on.