Eric Bischoff Believes AEW All In Incident Doesn’t Need “Investigation”
Eric Bischoff feels like an investigation into the AEW All In “fight” isn’t necessary because who was there when the incident took place.
The AEW All In pay-per-view made history last Saturday night with over 81,000+ fans in attendance at Wembley Stadium in London, England. It was the most tickets sold for any WWE or AEW show ever, which is something AEW has bragged about with good reason.
Unfortunately, right as the Pay-Per-View started, there was a backstage incident at the entrance area involving CM Punk and “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry.
As we have covered throughout the week, there have been a number of different stories about what happened between Punk and Perry. There was a past issue between them, which Perry brought up backstage and they got into a bit of a shoving match after Perry lost Hook, which was right before Punk’s match against Samoa Joe. Punk apparently choked or put the smaller Perry in a headlock, which led to others breaking up the fight.
After the Punk-Perry incident was broken up, Punk went on to have the opening match at All Out against Samoa Joe. Punk won that match to beat Joe. Meanwhile, Perry left the show while Punk voluntarily left later because he realized what happened was a good thing.
It was one year ago this week at AEW All Out 2022 in Chicago when Punk got into a backstage fight with The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) and Kenny Omega after Punk insulted multiple people in WWE. That led to suspensions as well as Punk’s friend AEW Producer Ace Steel being fired, but Punk managed to get Steel his job back a few months ago.
Many people have chimed in with their thoughts on the incident, including WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff on a recent podcast.
Eric Bischoff Wonders Why AEW Needs To “Investigate” All In Fight
The former WCW President Eric Bischoff talked about the Punk-Perry incident on the latest episode of his Strictly Business podcast. According to Bischoff, AEW doesn’t need to investigate since the fight happened right near where Tony Khan was backstage at AEW All In.
“That’s another bulls**t thing, okay? I hear this so much, oh it’s under investigation. Tony was standing right there for crying out loud. It is what it is. What investigation?”
“Are you calling in the CSI team? That kind of flakiness doesn’t work for me, brother. This is the time when a leader leads and if that means [he has to say], all of you that bought tickets because you thought CM Punk was going to be a part of this event, we apologize. The situation happened and it had to be handled in the correct way.”
“For the sake of the rest of the roster and the business long term, we apologize he won’t be here this time. Maybe next time. Take the bullet. It’s a wound, it’s gonna bleed, it’s gonna hurt. You’re gonna limp a little after. But people will respect you for that, the rest of the roster will respect you, the fans will respect you. They may not like it at first, especially if they bought tickets because they wanna see Punk. But at some point, the answer is yes or no.”
“Under investigation? For crying out loud. As much empathy as I have for Tony and as much as I’m trying to put myself in his shoes, because I’ve been in situations that are parallel in many respects, but you’ve gotta make a stand. Being wishy washy and saying we’re not really sure, you owe it to your audience to say yes he will or yes he won’t.”
“There’s nothing wrong — if you need a compromise, because he was advertised, let him work the show and then suspend him. But this, I don’t know if he will or he won’t, that’s weak. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care how much you love AEW, that’s just weak.”
For his part, AEW CEO Tony Khan has said he’s doing his best to be honest about what happened at AEW All In. No punishments have been announced yet although it’s been reported that Punk and Perry have been suspended for an undetermined amount of time.