Tony Khan Claims His Bold Call Helped Jack Perry’s AEW Return
Jack Perry is back in the fold in AEW and Tony Khan thinks his comeback was helped by the controversial decision to show the backstage footage from All In.
CM Punk was fired by AEW following his backstage confrontation with Jack Perry at All In. While Punk has since returned to WWE, Jack Perry had seemingly been banished from AEW, only making his return to the company at Dynasty, some seven months later.
At the AEW PPV in St. Louis, Jack Perry helped The Young Bucks defeat FTR to win the vacant AEW World Tag Team Championship for the third time. On screen, it was The Bucks who showed the footage of Punk and Perry’s confrontation but it was Tony Khan who made the call after CM Punk had brought up the bad blood in an interview the prior week.
Tony Khan Thinks CM Punk Footage Helped Jack Perry
Speaking at the Dynasty media scrum, Tony Khan explained that making the “bold” choice to air the CM Punk/Jack Perry footage was done to help explain to viewers where Perry had been all this time:
I think Jack Perry’s return got a lot of excitement and a huge reaction. We were in Chicago, it was a great night for the company when Jon Moxley became IWGP World Champion, and I got to watch Jack Perry’s return to American wrestling. He got a massive star reaction at New Japan’s Windy City show. I think he’s been doing great work in New Japan Pro-Wrestling.
When you go over, do an excursion, have a great run like he had in the New Japan Cup, and a great performance like he had against Shota [Shota Umino] in Chicago, I think that had a lot to do with it. I do think we made a bold call in the run-up to this match. It heightened the circumstances and added to the presentation and moment of Jack Perry’s return. I think a lot of people felt like it was a great return.
Also, I felt like it was important to explain, partially, where Jack has been. The last time we saw him on AEW television was at Wembley Stadium. He went through the curtain and we never saw him again since. I felt like some responsibility to the viewer given that I knew Jack was going to return to AEW, to explain where he has been.
Jack Perry had been in New Japan Pro Wrestling during his time away from AEW and competed in Punk’s hometown of Chicago in a loss to Shota Umino. It is believed now that Perry is back in AEW, his run in Japan will be over for now.