It hasn't even been a week since AEW aired the footage of CM Punk and Jack Perry fighting at All In at Wembley Stadium last August, and yet, seemingly everyone had an opinion on the decision, with some condemning Tony Khan for shooting his own promotion in the foot, while others noting just how crazy it was to be defending a man who put his coworker in a chokehold at work.
But what does TK think about the situation? Based on the reaction, does he believe that the decision was a mistake? Or does he stand behind the decision, as it added a dynamic to a forthcoming Pay-Per-View and popped a nice rating to boot?
Discussing the decision in an appearance on the Chris Russell Show, Tony Khan revealed that he ultimately believes he made the right call, as it played into the angle between the Young Bucks and FTR heading into AEW Dynasty.
“I think it made a lot of sense. First of all, the Young Bucks-FTR ladder match is coming up at AEW Dynasty for the World Tag Team Championships. This is the fourth chapter in FTR-Young Bucks. I believe they are the two greatest tag teams in wrestling, the two best on the planet. The last time they wrestled, Young Bucks-FTR 3, was at Wembley Stadium, AEW All In. A lot happened that day. Those guys, at one point, they were the third match on the pay-per-view, and at one point, it looked like we were going to have to call them up, and they were going to have to wrestle the first match. They ended up going on in the spot they were in, but the Young Bucks said the whole day, everything that happened, it affected their mental preparation, they weren't able to pray before the match, they were very stressed out. They slipped on the banana peel, lost the match, and they blame FTR and what happened at Wembley Stadium.
“In hindsight, that's why they refused to shake FTR's hands. We've seen the Young Bucks change a lot. We saw them get really dark during the retirement run of Sting. They've only gotten darker and more twisted. That's why they felt like they should play the tape. It was fascinating to see after the tape played, the reaction Jack Perry got at New Japan. He got the reaction of a superstar. That is not altogether unexpected and it's something very interesting, perhaps a side effect of this, Jack Perry already a big star in wrestling, really the way the crowd connected with him in Chicago, that was interesting. It leaves a lot of intriguing going into AEW Dynamite and AEW Dynasty.”
Alright, is TK being totally honest with his response? No, not really; while AEW was able to come up with a creative way to make the storyline between the Young Bucks and FTR more interesting than a simple tournament finale, in the end, he played the footage because he wanted to get back and maybe even shame CM Punk, which was arguably accomplished depending on your take.
Tony Schiavone doesn't think Tony Khan's decision killed AEW.
When the Young Bucks' big All In segment finished up, and the director cut to the commentary table, fans instantly cued in on Tony Schiavone's reaction to the segment, with some comparing it to how he looked after the “Finger Poke of Doom” that effectively marked the end of WCW at the turn of the century.
Did Tony Khan kill AEW with his booking decision in the same way that Hulk Hogan and company did in January of 1999? In Schiavone's opinion on his What Happened When podcast, the answer is a resounding no, as he was simply playing into the storyline of the Young Bucks being bad dudes, with his shameful reaction being embarrassment for them, not the promotion as a whole.
“People can take screenshots and assume anything from a screenshot. My facial reaction to what happened was my facial reaction trying to put more heat on The Bucks for being a**holes within the storyline itself. I did not have any reaction to the footage we'd seen because I don't give a d**n,” Tony Schiavone explained via Cageside Seats.
When his co-host, Conrad Thompson, noted that Schiavone had already seen the video before, the do-it-all commentator confirmed that to be the case, noting that he truly doesn't care how people feel about his reaction because it doesn't impact his real life one bit.
“No, that's right. So what? So f**king what? So I was not upset at the promotion, I was not upset at Tony Khan, I was not pissed off about what we had shown — I was trying to be fully in the moment of the angle, which is The Bucks b**ching about FTR, not wanting to shake their hands and getting f**ked around and everything. That's what I was doing,” Schiavone noted.
“But of course, everyone wants to create their own story and that's fine. That's what social media is about. Social media is about idiots coming together and trying to come up with their own ideas… Maybe I was still upset about Bug [Schiavone's dog who died recently], I don't know, but I didn't give a s**t about the footage — and still don't.
“I'm sincere when I say that I don't care. I don't care. It has no impact on my life. Some people are saying, ‘Oh the footage you were showing was like the Finger Poke of Doom moment for AEW.' Well, you know what? That's what you want it to be because you want to see us fail. And there's no way — cause I was in both companies — there's absolute no way you can compare us to WCW. You can't. You may want to. You may think you're right. You're wrong. You cannot compare us to WCW. I was there for both. You were not.”
Welp, there you go, folks; while Schiavone can't control what folks post on social media or how they react to something they see online, he doesn't believe AEW is about to die but was instead doing some acting in order to play up the hype of the angle. All in all, a real non-story where some thought they'd found a smoking gun.
Tony Schiavone on fans thinking he was upset during Dynamite over the airing the All In footage:
"My facial reaction is trying to put more heat on the Bucks being assholes, in storyline, I didn’t have any reaction to the footage we saw cause I don’t give a damn. . . I was not… pic.twitter.com/CREHELs0db
— 🅰️🅾️ (@KXNGAO) April 16, 2024
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