Like many others, I felt that AEW airing the All In footage some nine months after the incident occurred was a mistake, but Tony Khan insisted it was important that the footage was shown on his AEW Dynamite show in order to drive "interest for Dynamite and our Dynasty pay-per-view."
And indeed, when the footage aired, it was completely done in a storyline manner, complete with The Young Bucks playing their Matthew and Nicholas Jackson characters and acting as though they are heel authority figures.
So it's clear that AEW wants this incident to become part of the storyline. Okay, fine. I have some questions about this storyline, though:
If the incident between CM Punk and Jack Perry was truly just a "high school scrap" as Matthew and Nicholas suggested, then why would it have "thrown them off their game" and sent the locker room into disarray?
Where were The Young Bucks during this incident? I mean, they are EVPs and considering how much grief this caused them, wouldn't it make sense that they were nearby?
One would have to assume that these professional wrestlers are professional enough to put the incident out of their minds and do their jobs. CM Punk, who was actually part of the incident, was professional enough to have the first match with Samoa Joe, who was also backstage witnessing the fight. In fact... Another EVP (Kenny Omega) was in a match at All Out right after the Punk-Joe match and hasn't said anything about the fight causing him enough stress to lose the match.
Matthew and Nicholas suggested that FTR were the "masterminds" behind this whole incident. How would that work? Isn't that kind of an elaborate way just to mess with The Young Bucks?
The very next week on AEW Dynamite, CM Punk was fired with cause, with his actions being clearly tied to this incident. On AEW television shows, backstage fights happen ALL THE TIME. Why was this one different?
Jack Perry was made the "scapegoat" from this, despite not being fired for it. Who made that call to make him a scapegoat? If Matthew and Nicholas like the guy so much, how has he not appeared on AEW programming since August?
Matthew said in the segment, "If you 've got a problem with Jack Perry, chances are you're the problem." So were The Bucks the problem when they feuded with The Jurassic Express in 2022? Just saying...
The Young Bucks are clearly heels right now and, in their support of Jack Perry (not to mention his persona before and after this incident), it can be assumed that Perry is a heel as well. So who is the babyface in this? CM Punk? The guy who assaulted a co-worker, was fired with cause, and then became a massive babyface with the competition?
The footage showed Punk, Perry, Samoa Joe and Hook all gathered in the backstage area following the Perry/Hook match and right before the Punk/Joe match. While you could easily understand that they all have go somewhere after their matches... what's the point of the heel and face tunnels on Dynamite (not at All In, mind you)?
Right after the segment, FTR ran to the ring in a supposedly unscheduled segment. How does that work? Were any matches cut as a result? I mean.... just one segment later, Will Ospreay explained that he needed special permission from Tony Khan to discuss his (separate) WWE grievance on Dynamite. So which is it: wrestlers can choose to interrupt whenever they want, or do they need permission first?
Are most of these questions kind of silly? Absolutely. But I'm not the one who insisted this become part of a storyline...