CM Punk Fired

[Kadaveri]

Yeah there's a silly amount of over-thinking going on here when the most simple explanation for this is perfectly adequate. It's just a power struggle between the original authorities in the company (i.e. The Elite and their allies) and a new guy who threatened to become a new centre of power in the company. There doesn't need to be any real ideological or moral dimension included for that to adequately explain things, and you don't run into awkward things like having to explain why, if CM Punk vs. Young Hip Ideas was the root of the issue, were so many of the guys Punk got into conflict with old guys like Chris Jericho.

[Frankensteiner]

21 hours ago, sek69 said:

Yes, yes he was. He was going on TV and being unprofessional towards his co workers. 

Man, I don't know. That seems like massive hyperbole and exaggeration to me. He referenced them in litterally one promo on his comeback. Hardly "fucking with a promotion" based on that instance, especially when the TV show he was involved with was consistently better than the flagship show.

[El-P]

I mean, of course the problem was that CM Punk was an entitled shithead with a gigantic ego. But it's always fun to rant about some kind of poetic justice and the figure of a guy who postured as some kind of prophet when in the end he was a fraud and all. 

(and the idea that guys like Omega and the Buck need psychology lessons from anyone is absolutely laughable, they own pro-wrestling psychology)

[Embrodak]

1 minute ago, El-P said:

I mean, of course the problem was that CM Punk was an entitled shithead with a gigantic ego. But it's always fun to rant about some kind of poetic justice and the figure of a guy who postured as some kind of prophet when in the end he was a fraud.

(and the idea that guys like Omega and the Buck need psychology lessons from anyone is absolutely laughable, they own pro-wrestling psychology)

If playing video games with one’s own body is a form of psychology, sure.

[El-P]

...less is more.... video games... ok, check. 

Thanks, I completed my bingo for the day. Come back tomorrow with more clichés. 

[Embrodak]

24 minutes ago, El-P said:

...less is more.... video games... ok, check. 

Thanks, I completed my bingo for the day. Come back tomorrow with more clichés. 

I mean, that’s what they do, dude. They don’t even hide it, they say it out loud! Wrestling being more like video game cutscenes and movie fights is an integral part of what it is they think that they’re doing! It’s not “cliche” to criticize a Pollock or a Rothko painting for being a bunch of colors on a canvas, it’s just accurately stating what they put out with an implied judgment attached.

Just saying you think it looks cool and don’t give a fuck about the rules wrestlers made for themselves in previous eras if it results in less cool-looking stuff would be a billion times more intellectually honest than this weird “Actually, they’re the *real* psychologists” stuff that floats around the Elite fanbase from time to time. I guarantee Kenny’s the only one who even actually thinks that, the Bucks absolutely know that they are doing the Wolf of Wall Street Penny stock sales pitch and they fucking *love it*. Their entire career is an extended fuck you to every oldhead who told them they were too small and flippy and would never draw. Describing people who think the old heads had a point about what is and is not effective in a wrestling context (and who generally gravitated to CM Punk for that reason) as “reactionary” is just begging the question, to use a term of rhetoric.

[Kadaveri]

1 hour ago, Frankensteiner said:

Man, I don't know. That seems like massive hyperbole and exaggeration to me. He referenced them in litterally one promo on his comeback. Hardly "fucking with a promotion" based on that instance, especially when the TV show he was involved with was consistently better than the flagship show.

It should also be noted that that promo was approved by Tony Khan. The Voices of Wrestling guys were saying they'd been told the exact line in advance before the show started.

[KawadaSmile]

34 minutes ago, Kadaveri said:

It should also be noted that that promo was approved by Tony Khan. The Voices of Wrestling guys were saying they'd been told the exact line in advance before the show started.

Wasn't TK also nodding along Punk's Brawl Out tirade, too?

[Embrodak]

1 hour ago, KawadaSmile said:

Wasn't TK also nodding along Punk's Brawl Out tirade, too?

I suspect Tony was basically okay with the drama, but not the fighting.

[Kadaveri]

Yeah for all the infamy that tirade got it probably would have been forgotten about within a month if it didn't result in a fight minutes later. I remember watching it back a few months ago just to remind myself what was said and was kinda surprised at how 'not that huge a deal' it was.

[strobogo]

3 hours ago, Frankensteiner said:

Man, I don't know. That seems like massive hyperbole and exaggeration to me. He referenced them in litterally one promo on his comeback. Hardly "fucking with a promotion" based on that instance, especially when the TV show he was involved with was consistently better than the flagship show.

I believe when people talk about Punk "fucking with the promotion", they don't mean he was intentionally sabotaging things, but that his behavior repeatedly forced the company to change angles/cards, who could and couldn't be booked around him, etc. At one point they had to switch ROH tapings because multiple guys on the show Punk didn't like and couldn't be in the arenas with him.

[pmo]

Yeah this is important.  The rant would have meant nothing if the Elite didn't storm into Punks locker room like children on a power trip.  Thats why people are backing up Punk.  His behavior is wrong and fireable, but it is all reactionary.  Elite or one of their Clique start shit and Punk overreacts.  One who reacted is fired, the other, who caused or was involved each one of these situations, gets to take a victory lap literally.  It doesn't seem right in that way.  Punk maybe a jackass but the Elite aren't far behind.  

[strobogo]

Well he literally did tell them to come find him, and then Punk sucker punched one of them.

[El McKell]

5 hours ago, pmo said:

The rant would have meant nothing if the Elite didn't storm into Punks locker room like children on a power trip.  

He said in his rant that if they have any issues with him his door is open to talk about it, they brought a HR person and went to his locker room. I don't see them doing this as wrong at all

[Embrodak]

53 minutes ago, El McKell said:

He said in his rant that if they have any issues with him his door is open to talk about it, they brought a HR person and went to his locker room. I don't see them doing this as wrong at all

No, he pretty clearly was insinuating that he’d rather have a fight with someone that had a problem with him instead of them spreading shitty little rumors about him behind his back. Getting a posse together and barging into somebody’s locker room while the actual boss is still finishing a press conference when they’re *clearly* banged up and pissed off and just got done publicly castigating you could easily be construed as “fighting words”, especially if all he saw at the time he started the fight was the Bucks and Omega, aka the guys he just openly called incompetent managers in front of the entire wrestling press, coming into his locker room when they either weren’t invited or were told to fuck off. Much as we might justifiably focus on Punk’s lack of self-control, I think it’s silly to pretend this was all an above board business meeting and not, y’know, people who were pissed off at the guy who wanted to go chew him out at the worst possible moment to try and do so, thereby proving his claims that they don’t really have the chops to manage a wrestling locker room as Punk understands such a thing. That they brought Daniels and legal with them doesn’t cancel out the obvious and easily preventable stupidity (or at least, massive failure of social intuition) on display there, and frankly, the fact that Daniels and the lawyer didn’t talk them *out* of it, tell them that Tony absolutely had to be present for any such confrontation if it was to be remotely fruitful, calls into question *their* competence, too.

[Mr Wrestling 2000]

10 hours ago, strobogo said:

Well he literally did tell them to come find him, and then Punk sucker punched one of them.

reaping and sowing

[pmo]

Yeah if you are management (and they have titles and claim to be) and you want to have a resolution to the situation, the last thing you do is run into the locker room with HR and talent relations.  What was the plan here?  Chew them out? Threaten them?  Especially when a pro athlete is coming off an adrenaline high and you're already aware he's not in a good place.  

What should have been done is have the conversation the next day when everyone has calmed down.  Chew Punk out then, not when there's a gaggle of media around to exacerbate the situation.   Handle it like adults not like children.   AEW HR, whose job it is to understand this, definitely should have known how better to handle this.  Again Punks response was terrible but how the Elite has handled themselves, especially since they are "management" is atrocious.   Maybe you get a better response from Punk maybe not but it would have avoided the fight.

Honestly TK should fire Perry and I would bury the Bucks for the victory lap stunt.  Cut the feud with FTR off and job them out and/or confine them to Rampage.  They're pretty cold and stale as a tag team so it's not like you're losing much.  See if they handle the demotion like men and if not let them go when the contract is up.  

 

[NintendoLogic]

Based on the information we have, nothing Perry has done has come even remotely close to a firing offense. Wanting to use real glass was stupid, but the spot was approved by management and a car had been procured for that purpose before Punk nixed it. And if you're going to hold the Elite responsible for escalating things by barging into Punk's locker room, you have to to the same for Punk for getting in Perry's face when he had a match to get ready for. It's disappointing to me as a fan because Punk was the part of AEW I found the most consistently compelling, but companies don't fire their biggest draw unless something really heinous happens.

[pmo]

Punk earned being fired, never said he didn't.  My only comment was that it wouldn't surprise if he went after them in court.   I think it could have been avoided if both parties behaved better.  Based on the situation it's probably going to get worse 

As far Perry goes he did instigate the incident on camera (this isn't 2000 wcw where we are making up worked shoots).  If he doesn't go off on Punk on camera this doesn't happen.  He put the company in this situation and there should be consequences.  Therefore if Punk goes he should go as well for inciting the incident(it will also diffuse Punks argument in court).  If they want him back pull a Finlay and hire him back in a year.

 

[Lukeless]

On 9/3/2023 at 8:32 AM, Embrodak said:

Look if the more sensational reports are true, Punk pretty much had to be fired, but I’m not going to pretend his “toxicity” (another one of those horrible modern buzzwords) would make me not want to watch his, to me, obviously-superior-to-all-other-contenders vision of pro wrestling. Klaus Kinski was a raging psychopath and narcissist, but his performances for Werner Herzog are amongst the best in film history.

I'm reading through this thread and stuff like this is just amazing at this point.  If you want to strengthen your argument you shouldn't be comparing Punk to a rapist and someone who made life hell by all accounts from a lot of people involved in all of those films.  Saying they should have kept Punk is deeply selfish and shows a lack of interest in anyone else in the entire AEW company.  This isn't meant as a call out to you specifically but most of or at least half of this board has become deeply pro-Punk for really no apparent reason besides liking his "wrestling philosophy."  Going through his MANY scandals and backstage difficulties this board could always be relied upon say that everything that made Punk look bad was a work and everything that made him look good was a shoot and those goddamn elite are the worst human beings this side of Franco.  AEW existed and was succeeding.  Punk came in.  Problems began and increased in magnitude and frequency.  It's never been clearer that a problem needed to be excised and TK probably should have done it sooner.  Watching AEW was actively difficult whenever Punk was on screen even though I did tend to appreciate his in-ring style.  What a smug, difficult, rotten bastard.  I'm glad he's gone and can't attempt to kill another coworker.

[sek69]

I know Punk 100% would want to take Tony to court if he felt wrongly terminated, but I also think he's smart enough to know he couldn't outlast a billionaire in court no matter how stubborn he is. 

[The Thread Killer]

6 hours ago, Lukeless said:

I'm glad he's gone and can't attempt to kill another coworker.

I agree. I’m not sure about the legality of this, but I think it would be best for the entire Pro Wrestling business…and indeed for all mankind…if somehow we just lock this maniac up, before he almost strikes again. The man is clearly a dangerous psychotic and he must be stopped.

[Embrodak]

7 hours ago, Lukeless said:

I'm reading through this thread and stuff like this is just amazing at this point.  If you want to strengthen your argument you shouldn't be comparing Punk to a rapist and someone who made life hell by all accounts from a lot of people involved in all of those films.  Saying they should have kept Punk is deeply selfish and shows a lack of interest in anyone else in the entire AEW company.  This isn't meant as a call out to you specifically but most of or at least half of this board has become deeply pro-Punk for really no apparent reason besides liking his "wrestling philosophy."  Going through his MANY scandals and backstage difficulties this board could always be relied upon say that everything that made Punk look bad was a work and everything that made him look good was a shoot and those goddamn elite are the worst human beings this side of Franco.  AEW existed and was succeeding.  Punk came in.  Problems began and increased in magnitude and frequency.  It's never been clearer that a problem needed to be excised and TK probably should have done it sooner.  Watching AEW was actively difficult whenever Punk was on screen even though I did tend to appreciate his in-ring style.  What a smug, difficult, rotten bastard.  I'm glad he's gone and can't attempt to kill another coworker.

My point is that behind-the-scenes difficulties are beside the point for the audience, because we can’t know their actuality, only the way they filter through to us through the perspectives of various self-interested parties, a process that inherently results in a kind of mythmaking. I’m sure Punk *is* difficult to work with and a huge asshole, that’s pretty much established canonical fact at this point, but I cannot begin to fathom the idea of being so disgusted by that fact that his very presence cannot be countenanced, especially when his sins are pretty modest in the historical context of the wrestling business as a whole. It smacks of the kind of parasociality rife in modern life that I consciously seek to avoid. (Don’t even get me started on how vacuous the word “toxic” has become; second only to “gaslighting” for words that have been memed into meaninglessness.)
 

If talent and management no longer wish to work with him, that’s *fine*, they’re all adults and it’s their choice, but I’m not friends with these people, not in community with them. It’s neither morally obligatory nor virtuous for me to get upset on their behalf on the basis of media reports of what happened. All I have unmediated access to is the work that makes it to the screen, and as far as that goes, I greatly preferred the Punk-led vision of what AEW could be that we got on Collision, and I’m not going to pretend that the threat that posed to centers of power in the back with a competing vision doesn’t factor into my analysis of why things broke down so very thoroughly. Yes, Punk seems to be the party at greatest and final fault, but I don’t feel particularly justified in going beyond that judgment, in terms of assigning moral blameworthiness.

I’ve got no beef with people who just genuinely don’t like Punk as a performer, thought the Bret tribute shit was lame and that his psychology and storytelling didn’t make up for his shitty athleticism. But the performative outrage - a pervasive phenomenon of which this is but one recent example - is tiresome. “Kill a coworker”, I mean… come on, man. 

[Lukeless]

I suppose hyperbole doesn't come through well in text format.  My bad.  I do feel like the "performative outrage" is on both sides if it is there at all.  I don't really see a lot of outrage just differing opinions that are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

[C.S.]

To no one's surprise after the Punk firing, Christopher Guy (Ace Steele) is reportedly no longer with AEW.