New reports following this week’s AEW Dynamite suggest Tony Khan was the driving force behind the infamous CM Punk All-In backstage fight video release and Will Ospreay’s surprising public attack at WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
There was a whole bunch of hype heading into this week’s edition of AEW Dynamite after the promotion advertised plans to show the backstage footage of CM Punk’s well-publicized fight with Jack Perry at last summer’s All-In event. However, the footage did little to change the narrative of what the WWE star explained during an interview about the moment on “The MMA Hour” last week.
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In the segment on Wednesday, the Young Bucks — a duo who also had an infamous backstage brawl in 2022 with Punk — weaved a narrative to work the video into their upcoming tag title match against Punk friends FTR. Some speculated that Matt and Nick Jackson were in favor of the segment happening due to their previous issues with the WWE legend but it seems the idea was very much foisted on them by AEW boss Tony Khan.
“I’ve been checking with people in AEW and I have been told that this was not something The Bucks were in favor of doing. It wasn’t their idea, it was Tony Khan’s idea that he wanted this out there,” PW Torch reporter Wade Keller revealed on Thursday.
However, a segment later in the night where recent free agent addition Will Ospreay took a veiled shot at WWE legend and Chief Content Officer Paul Levesque was also an idea heavily pushed by Khan.
AEW locker room frustrated with Tony Khan using TV time to settle scores
The first part of his promo was him addressing a comment that Triple H said on the [“Pat McAfee Show” that was] alluding to Will Ospreay being someone who didn’t want to be part of the grind,” Keller claimed. “I’m also told that this was an idea presented to Ospreay. I don’t know about Ospreay’s enthusiasm for or against it but it wasn’t something he did on his own. He didn’t wing it.”
Tony Khan’s use of AEW Dynamite as a platform to settle scores has seemingly also frustrated many in the locker room and in the company.
Based on what I’m hearing from multiple people in AEW, nobody that they know was in favor of what Tony Khan put on TV [between] the Punk footage and the Ospreay did at Triple H,” Keller reported. “People see it as a distraction and Tony Khan going after two people that Tony has issues with, Punk and Paul Levesque. Tony Khan sees Paul Levesque very much as a foe in his world. I would say the morale isn’t great as far as this goes.”
