Why Ricky Starks might be the big loser from the CM Punk-Jack Perry All In altercation

The AEW All In backstage drama may have cost Ricky Starks a big match.

The backstage altercation between CM Punk and Jack Perry at AEW All In was obviously suboptimal for a company in the middle of its biggest show ever. It’s also less than ideal for Punk to be suspended for All Out this weekend in Chicago (assuming his suspension lasts that long), where he’s the biggest draw. Yet there’s also collateral damage in situations like this in the form of opportunity costs to other talent.

In this case, that sounds like it applies to Ricky Starks. While he’s been serving a storyline suspension, it conveniently was timed so that he could have a match at All Out on Sunday, though he’s nowhere to be found on the card.

According to Fightful Select (subscription required), there’s a reason for that: He was being considered for a match with Punk.

One of the matches on the table was CM Punk vs. Ricky Starks for the AEW Real Worlds Championship, which would have followed up their series of matches that went down this summer. From what we’ve heard it likely would have been the main event. There’s no word on the status of the match now that CM Punk was suspended after his physical altercation with Jack Perry.

AEW has certainly pushed Starks as a bigger star and given him more of a spotlight since Collision launched this summer, but his most recent plot twist that has kept him out of the ring has robbed him of some momentum (for what it’s worth, Fightful also says he isn’t injured).

A main event spot with Punk in Chicago obviously would have made up for that in a big way, but it’s possible that opportunity has fallen by the wayside if Punk is out of the picture for All Out.

That looks like the case, since Tony Khan has promoted a different potential match for Starks based on this Saturday’s episode of Collision:

 

A match against a legend like Ricky Steamboat isn’t nothing, and it makes sense in the context of Starks beating him down with a belt earlier this month. It’s just not the same as competing against the biggest name in the company in that person’s hometown.

Hopefully AEW finds a way to do right by Starks in the near future, but his predicament is a good example of how the kind of backstage drama that popped up again at All In can affect more than just the people involved.