All Elite Wrestling has had its fair share of critics over the years, with not many being as vocal as Eric Bischoff. The former top executive at World Championship Wrestling has taken issue with many of the parallels drawn between his now-defunct wrestling promotion and AEW, believing Tony Khan’s company hasn’t accomplished a fraction of what WCW did in the 1990s. Bischoff has never been shy about blasting Khan’s booking, and has taken significant exception to the supposed successes of AEW World Champion CM Punk.
Successes or not, the wrestling world stood still this past Sunday when Punk went on an uncensored and unscripted tirade at the AEW All Out press conference. Punk blasted former friend Colt Cabana, former rival “Hangman” Adam Page, and AEW Executive Vice Presidents Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks before answering reporter questions. One of those questions revolved around Punk’s statement last September that Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson coming into AEW was “bigger” than Scott Hall and Kevin Nash jumping to WCW back in 1996. While Punk showed some hesitations, he noted he stands by the statement because he knew it angered Bischoff.
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Bischoff responded to Punk’s presser as a whole on AdFreeShows.com, noting he believes Punk needs to get over the Cabana situation.
“At some point you gotta let that s–t go, bro. You can’t let it get in the way of how you’re perceived as a character,” Bischoff said. “I don’t have anything personal against Punk. I lost some respect for him based on stupid s–t that he said, but it doesn’t mean I dislike him or want him to fail or whatever, but he’s a guy who’s supposed to be a babyface, whining. He’s f–king whining.
“Punk started this s–t,” Bischoff continued. “Now if it’s for creative reasons because there’s a plan that none of us know about that Tony’s in on it and talent is in on it and this is actually going to go somewhere and we’re on our first quarter-mile of a twenty-mile journey, then cool as s–t, but if it’s not that, what we’ve just seen part of is complete dysfunction.”
As someone who has dealt with big egos in a professional wrestling locker room before, Bischoff added that he sympathizes with Khan.
“I feel bad for Tony Khan right now. In many respects he’s setting himself up for this, whatever this is or ends up being, but he’s paying that cat lots of money,” Bischoff said. “He’s paying CM Punk a fortune and CM Punk is cutting his balls off. Not only in front of everybody else in the the roster, the executive team, the production team. Oh, by the way, his business partners, you know, like Warner Discovery. Potential advertisers, potential sponsors, maybe even if need be a potential network to sell their show to, should something go wrong with the Warner Discovery merger. For what reason?
“One of the things that I found really interesting watching this back, is the irony. You know, here’s irony, in the sense that CM Punk is talking about how unprofessional you know, The Young Bucks are and by default, by the way, Tony Khan, as he’s sitting right there, undermining the company talking about how unprofessional, someone else is. Don’t you find that ironic? Don’t you find it ironic that here’s CM Punk whose legend, if you will, has lived on primarily because of the wrestling internet universe in the people that are supporting him. And now he’s screaming, he’s yelling at reporters for reporting lies.”
It’s being reported that Punk’s AEW future is in jeopardy following Sunday. After his comments, he and trainer Ace Steel were involved in a fight with Omega and the Bucks, which resulted in numerous suspensions. Punk and Steel’s AEW futures are said to be decided by the end of Wednesday.
AEW Dynamite airs tonight on TBS.
