8 Times AEW's Tony Khan Was A GOD-TIER Booker
5. CM Punk Returns To Wrestling
CM Punk will always be a touchy subject for AEW's more tribal fans. Punk's AEW legacy will always be connected to the venom in his All Out 2022 press conference and the problematic final months of his time with the company, but you won't find an honest fan who didn't want the Best In The World to join AEW before his big return. Punk's absence left a huge void in pro wrestling after he left WWE in 2013, and it was Tony Khan who persuaded him to come out of retirement.
The global joy that came with Punk's return is something incredibly rare in wrestling. The First Dance at the Sears Center in Chicago on the 20th August, 2021 edition of Collision was as "must see" as wrestling gets. His dive into the crowd brought a smile to the surliest of faces, and every line of his promo was greeted with a roar from his hometown crowd that could cause an earthquake. Revisionist history cannot rewrite what a gargantuan moment this was for Khan and AEW.
From here, it becomes harder to get a unified opinion on anything Punk did in AEW. His feud with MJF is perhaps the best in company history, but the fallout from Brawl Out did significant damage that took AEW years to fully recover from. Nevertheless, if you've enjoyed anything CM Punk has done in wrestling since his return, you owe Tony Khan a debt of gratitude.