8 Times AEW's Tony Khan Was A DISASTER-TIER Booker
4. Airing The CM Punk All Out Footage
The aftermath of CM Punk's very public falling out with The Elite and Tony Khan began a slow funeral march to inevitable ruin, that eventually culminated in a physical altercation between Punk and Jack Perry at All In 2023.
Tony Khan feels like a man who is terminally online, so when CM Punk appeared on Ariel Helwani's high-profile YouTube show on April 1st, 2024 to air his side of the events of that fateful day at Wembley, the AEW owner felt as though he had to retaliate. He did so by announcing that AEW would air the footage of Punk and Perry going at it on AEW Dynamite 9 days later.
The problem with this is that AEW's audience were completely over it by this point. Everyone had chosen what side of the argument they were on, and nothing was going to sway an online audience that live and die by their own personal opinions. Given that the footage didn't show Punk doing anything beyond what he'd admitted to or what AEW had accused him of, this short-term spike in ratings (whatever that is worth) only served to make Khan look petulant and desperate, at a time when his fans and roster were all desperately trying to "restore the feeling".