More than a few AEW fans, including, depending on the moment, me, think the CM Punk-Elite backstage brawl is a work, and I use the present tense, “is,” because if it is a work, it’s ongoing.
There are some decent reasons to think it could be a work, in the face of the preponderance of evidence pointing in the other direction, the overriding question making you think it absolutely isn’t a work being, why?
The fight came maybe an hour after AEW had put on one of the better pay-per-view wrestling events of the past several years, with Punk going over in the main event to win his second AEW world title, punctuated by the return of MJF as the beginning of the payoff of a storyline worked shoot promo that had led to the top heel being off TV for three months.
The criticism that I’d give to the MJF return was for the way it was done at the “All Out” pay-per-view – with it being teased that the masked men who interfered in a battle royal match to determine the next #1 world title contender was indeed MJF early in the show, news that was confirmed as the closing credits rolled.
The problem there: keeping MJF off TV for three months for his shoot comments directed at Tony Khan made it seem like the issues between the two were real.
Having him come back by using guys in masks to help him get a world title shot is about as pro wrestling as pro wrestling can get.
So, bad business there, but even so, it was the payoff to a story that had been planted beginning back in February.
If you want to believe that the CM Punk-Elite thing is a work, then, you have to accept that Tony Khan decided to step on one worked behind-the-scenes story by beginning another one literally minutes later.
The discipline that it took Khan to keep MJF off TV all summer, as Punk, Bryan Danielson and a cascade of other top stars went on and off the injured list is noteworthy.
It’s hard to figure he’d blow all of that up to start something even better even a few months later, much less a few minutes later.
OK, so, there’s that.
One factoid that could get you to believe that the Punk-Elite story is a work is, think about it, where are the photos?
Punk supposedly dotted the eye of one of the Young Bucks, and Ace Steel hit the other one with a chair.
Matt and Nick Jackson and their buddy, Kenny Omega, made their way from high school gyms to being EVPs of a $100 million company by putting every minute of their lives on the web for public consumption.
And now we’re led to believe that they were attacked in a dressing room, and there are no receipts.
Something there doesn’t add up.
And we’re also being told, per “sources,” that the Bucks have reached out to WWE to gauge interest in them once their deals with AEW come up in early 2024.
Convenient, what those “sources” are telling the dirt sheets.
And how about the booking for the Danielson-Chris Jericho match at “All Out”? It seemed odd that night that Khan put Jericho over, but then when the brackets for the world title tournament were released, there they were, set to meet in the semifinals, where it was obvious that Danielson would get the win to advance to meet Jon Moxley in the final.
Now each guy has a win in their AEW series.
Logic would seem to have dictated a Danielson win at the pay-per-view – seriously, he’s going to win the world title at some point, not this week, because we’re headed toward MJF vs. Moxley at “Full Gear,” but at some point, relatively soon – but you wouldn’t want to have Jericho lose twice to him in the span of a couple of weeks, which is what would have happened if Danielson had gone over at “All Out” and then again in the tournament.
That’s no doubt reading too much into the booking plans, but it’s awfully … again, the word here is convenient.
The overarching silence – from Khan, from the Jacksons and Omega, from Punk – feeds into the conspiratorial thinking.
We’re told that the lack of definitive word is the result of a third-party investigation into exactly what transpired backstage between the warring parties, with hints that Khan is efforting to forestall a possible thorny legal situation from coming into play.
The silence is also a, here we go again, convenient way to keep the story in the headlines, which has been a boost to the ratings for “Dynamite” the past two weeks.
Last week’s episode garnered the biggest TV viewing audience of 2022, for a show that didn’t include four of the company’s top stars.
I’ve talked myself into it again. I think we’re all being worked.
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Chris Graham
