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Tony Khan Addresses AEW Firing CM Punk – “My Life Was In Danger”

By John Canton • Published 3rd September 2023
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Tony Khan addressed the television audience watching AEW Collision by letting them know that he felt like his life was in danger due to CM Punk.

It was earlier on Saturday, a few hours before AEW went live with Collision from Chicago, when Tony Khan announced that former two-time AEW World Champion CM Punk was fired.

The reason CM Punk got fired is because at AEW All In London last Sunday, Punk got into an altercation with Jack Perry. Their issue started because Perry made comments directed toward Punk during his Zero Hour match with Hook. When Perry got backstage, Punk was there because his match was next. This led to the two men exchanging words and a physical altercation took place with Punk apparently putting Perry into a headlock among other things.

Another report on what happened at All In came from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter by Dave Meltzer, which shared this interesting bit of information about Punk lunging towards AEW Owner/CEO/General Manager Tony Khan.

“Another version, and this would be a neutral source who was not a wrestler but was there and witnessed it and his version was that right after Perry came to the back, Punk went nose-to-nose with him aggressively and asked him if he had a problem. That person said Perry said he was just looking to get heat as a heel. Punk shoved him hard, Perry got in his face and in that version Punk sucker punched him and went for a choke.”

“People immediately broke it up and Khan was yelling at Punk to let him go. That person said that once they were separated, Punk lunged in Khan’s direction but a number of people got in his way while Punk was yelling “I Quit.” Monitors were knocked down during all this. Joe was very upset and went to calm Punk down.”

There was apparently video footage of everything that happened backstage at All In as well, so AEW likely “investigated” the situation during the week, which led to Khan making the decision to fire Punk on Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday, AEW decided to fire CM Punk with cause while Tony Khan made this statement (using CM Punk’s real first name Phil Brooks) in a press release sent out by the company, which was also posted on all of their social media accounts and other places.

“Phil played an important role within AEW and I thank him for his contributions. The termination of his AEW contracts with cause is ultimately my decision, and mine alone. Of course, I wish I didn’t have to share this news, which may come as a disappointment to many of our fans.”

“Nevertheless, I am making the decision in the best interests of the many amazing people who make AEW possible every week – our talent, staff, venue operators and many others whose efforts are unsung but essential to bringing our fans great shows on television and at arenas and stadiums throughout the world.”

Tony Khan Spoke About CM Punk Being Fired At Start Of AEW Collision

At the start of tonight’s episode of AEW Collision, Tony Khan addressed the CM Punk situation by talking about what happened and saying that he was in fear for his life.

“Today I had to make one of the toughest decisions of my professional career, today I terminated Phil Brooks, CM Punk, for cause.

This stems from a backstage incident at AEW All In last Sunday. The incident was regrettable and it endangered people backstage.

That includes the production staff, the people who help put the show on every week. Innocent people who had nothing to do with it.

I’ve been going to wrestling shows for over thirty years. I’ve been producing them on this network for nearly four years. Never in all that time have I ever felt, until last Sunday, that my security, my safety, my life was in danger at a wrestling show. I don’t think the people I work with should feel that way and I had to make a very difficult choice today.”

Tony Khan went on to say he was sorry to any fans who were upset by this. Khan went on to talk about Collision and the All Out PPV on Sunday night.