A few years ago, CM Punk was All Elite Wrestling’s biggest star.
After a seven-year hiatus, including a disastrous pair of fights in the UFC, a few movie roles, and some work on comic books, the real-life Phil Brooks returned to professional wrestling under the All Elite banner. He had been through a lot, particularly with the lawsuit from a WWE doctor, legal action that the company bankrolled at the time, based on comments he made about his exit from the organization in 2014 on his friend, Colt Cabana’s podcast. The fallout from the lawsuit with the WWE doctor, a case that Punk won in court, was a fallout between him and Colt Cabana, resulting in another lawsuit. The legal dispute between the former friends was settled out of court.
The point being, there was a lot of water under the bridge for Phil Brooks to ever be associated with professional wrestling again, but in 2021, the combination of the hype that the promotion had at the time and Tony Khan’s checkbook, were enough to get him to lace up his boots again.
Realistically, the working agreement was probably doomed either way, as CM Punk, while a talented jerk, is still a jerk that was notoriously difficult to work with, and just on the surface, his typical snarky reputation was something that was going to clash with the care-free “killing the business” approach that The Young Bucks gleefully took on the industry. Granted, major stars have been difficult to work with for decades, but when management can run a professional office, business can be done and everyone involved can draw money.
Managing the egos, insecurities, and skills of talented performers is a critical part of a promoter’s job. Vince McMahon is probably a deviant in his personal life, but as a wrestling boss, he was able to juggle all of the eccentric traits of performers that work in high pressure situations with big money at stake. Roddy Piper wasn’t going to put Hogan over because he knew that Hulk wouldn’t return the favor, but McMahon found a way to get some form of the match in the ring. Steve Austin took his ball and went home before he had one final run in the ring. Plus, attempting to keep Ultimate Warrior on the rails long enough to draw for a few key pay-per-views in the early-90s.
Ultimately, keeping the talent content is part of the promoter’s job, and Tony Khan couldn’t do that.
After a backstage fight between CM Punk, Ace Steele, and The Elite, based on the previous bad blood with Colt Cabana that he thought The Young Bucks leaked online to start rumors in The Wrestling Observer newsletter in 2022, Brooks was away from the company for nearly a year, nursing a triceps injury that required surgery. Less than three months later, the infamous “real glass” incident happened with Jack Perry and another backstage fight led to Brooks’ dismissal from AEW.
Make no mistake about, the Punk/AEW agreement wasn’t going to last and it wasn’t going to end well. There are rightfully criticisms of both sides of that specific argument, but the bottom line is, AEW is what it is as a commodity, and CM Punk is who he is as far as dealing with him as a talent. It was oil and water, and there was simply no way that Tony Khan was going to be able to mediate that situation.
CM Punk was destined to leave All Elite Wrestling disgruntled, but the immaturity of Jack Perry expedited the process.
If Jack Perry doesn’t reference the insider story about Punk refusing to let him use real glass on a prior edition of Collision, a show that Punk was allowed to run despite not being an official member of management, it’s very possible that Brooks might’ve at least been around long enough to finish out his contract. As we know, money is no object for Tony, but from strictly a business perspective, CM Punk was under contract for roughly two years and made millions of dollars to be on the injured list for the majority of it. If Punk would’ve worked through the rest of his contract, some money could’ve been drawn to justify his hefty paychecks.
Instead, Punk was fired from AEW to be able to walk into the WWE as one of their top stars during an era when the company touts record-setting profits and has more distribution than any other time in history.
Jack Perry is at least partially to blame for that.
I mentioned the history of CM Punk’s rocky tenure in All Elite to point out that it wasn’t solely Perry’s fault that the biggest star that the company left, but he definitely shares some blame in it. The level of blame is based on what it ultimately cost the company, they had a star that made a measurable difference in the bottom line across the board, which is rare for any company in the industry. There’s a reason that there are only a few truly top guys in the business since they are the ones that directly move the needle.
When CM Punk was on Dynamite, the show garnered around a million viewers a week. This past week’s edition of the show drew 638,000 viewers. CM Punk sold tickets, as after he left there was a noticeable dip in attendance with dark venues used as a way to hide the empty seats before the company transitioned to much smaller buildings. CM Punk moved merchandise, which he still does today for the WWE. The pay-per-view buy rate stays roughly the same since there’s a core demographic that will order the $50 PPVs, often regardless of what’s booked for the card.
Still, CM Punk had a measurable impact on almost every metric of All Elite Wrestling.
That’s why Jack Perry’s return to the organization after a year away was somewhat puzzling. Following the fight with Punk at Wembley Stadium, Perry was suspended by Tony Khan and sent to work for New Japan for a few months. After six months away from AEW, he returned in mid-2024 as a heel and eventually had a reign with the TNT championship, which didn’t do much for him. There’s no doubt that he had to be brought back at a heel because the All Elite fan base follow the internet rumors, but given what his silliness cost the company, the audience was more or less indifference to the Scapegoat act. He wasn’t a victim of circumstances, he was immature and unprofessional.
At least initially, his return at All Out last weekend was met with that same indifference until Kill Switch was randomly rebranded as Luchasauras for the reunion of the tag team. So, a team from five years ago is going to be used to try to remove the “stain” of the CM Punk incident from Jack Perry’s career. Truth be told, this is probably the only way that Tony could attempt to rejuvenate Perry’s status, but there are a few questions that should be asked as far as if this was the right decision. Most importantly, is there enough of an upside to Jack Perry to continue to use him in AEW? Almost as important as that, is the opportunity cost of booking Luchasauras in a tag team to help Perry worth it for the impact that it will have on the former Kill Switch’s career? Sure, this is a way for Perry to try to get over with the fans again so it’s technically a positive for him, but it could eventually to a negative sum total for Luchasauras’ career.
What this comes down to is, will this run as a team again be a retread of “be there, done that” or will it be used as a way to progress Jack Perry as a baby face? In theory, this could be a way for Perry to get over as a more serious baby face beyond the original Jungle Boy gimmick. Perry can’t go back to wrestling in Tarzan outfits and sitting on the shoulders of Luchasauras if this tenure as a team is going to progress his career.
It remains to be seen if Jack Perry can get a fresh start in the organization or how the decision of his return will impact the career prospects of Luchasauras, but on the most basic level, I’d question the decision to bring Perry back at all. Originally, he was dubbed as one of the four pillars of the promotion, but he fell woefully short of that, which isn’t entirely his fault since Tony hasn’t booked any of those four into a top spot. Even if Perry gets over as a baby face again, is it truly going to make a dent in AEW’s business? The bottom line, is it worth it to keep him on the roster? The guy has proven to be aloof and considering what that cost the company, it’s somewhat astonishing that he still gets paid by Tony Khan.
When you take into account that WWE has CM Punk as one of its top stars, and AEW has Jack Perry reform a tag team from five years ago, it’s easy to see why one company can still sell tickets at outrageous prices and why the other company exponentially smaller venues.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
