News

CM Punk reportedly threatened to “quit” AEW over frustration with Jack Perry incident

Aaron Rift

As previously noted, there was reportedly a backstage confrontation between CM Punk and Jack Perry at the 2023 All In PPV event. Click here for initial details on what allegedly happened and click here for a follow-up report.

The incident happened right before Punk’s match with Samoa Joe and according to Wade Keller of PWTorch.com, AEW officials were alerted to the possibly of the show’s match order needing to be changed. There was said to have been brief concern that the start of the show would have to be delayed due to what happened between Punk and Perry but Punk was able to regroup in time for his scheduled match. Keller was told that in the heat of the moment, Punk threatened to “quit” due to his frustration with the incident involving Jack Perry.

Keller also went into more detail about what happened a few months ago between Punk and Perry…

“That was a reference to the belief that Punk’s camp a few weeks ago put out info to try to make Perry look bad. A story surfaced that Perry wanted to use real glass in an angle and thta Punk provided ‘veteran wisdom’ to steer him away from that. This was seen as an example of how Punk and his like-minded people with influence behind the scenes on Collision were trying to dial back gratuitous violence and high-risk situations so that when there is more violent imagery or more high-risk content in matches, it will mean more and resonate longer.

Perry felt that story getting out was an attempt by Punk and his camp to show him up or embarrass him, thus Perry decided to fire back with an unscripted, unapproved commented live on the Zero Hour PPV pre-show in the midst of his match against Hook.”

According to Keller, Perry is likely to receive more blame by management for the incident but Punk is not seen as “blameless.”

Bryan Alvarez of F4WOnline.com tweeted the following on Monday afternoon…

“The belief within AEW is that Punk and Jack are both suspended pending the results of an investigation, which would mean neither will work All Out.”