No one wins from CM Punk’s departure from AEW

AEW had to fire CM Punk. But things should never have reached this point.

After two years of drama, fights and sneak dissing through the media, the CM Punk saga in All Elite Wrestling has ended.

On Saturday, AEW founder Tony Khan released a statement through the promotion’s social media platforms that officially announced that he — and he alone — terminated Punk’s contract with cause, effective immediately.

The announcement came hours before AEW presented Collision in Punk’s hometown of Chicago and one day before AEW hosted its second pay-per-view in as many weeks … also in Punk’s hometown. It could get pretty awkward for AEW this weekend in the Windy City.

This may come as a surprise (this is sarcasm), but the discourse around Punk’s departure on social media was devoid of any nuance. One on side, you had people loving the fact Khan finally put his foot down while the other side was lamenting the fact that AEW’s biggest moneymaker — Khan’s words, not mine — was now gone.

In my eyes, there is only one way to look at the entirety of this situation: Everyone loses.

Punk loses because he lost his job with a promotion that gave him basically everything he wanted, including his own prime time show.

AEW loses because … it had to fire Punk. I highly doubt when AEW first signed Punk, it was hoping to fire the guy two years in. Also, Punk could feasibly waltz right over to WWE and make his long-awaited return. While that is not guaranteed, if it does happen, that does obviously not help AEW.

I know some people saw Punk as a cancer inside AEW’s locker room and that his unceremonious exit is merely addition by subtraction. Given all of the reported drama, Punk hurting the morale of the locker room doesn’t sound like something that is outside of the realm of possibility.

However, Punk was the promotion’s top draw. Again, those were Khan’s words, not mine. How does a promotion losing its most notable star help? The locker room sans Punk could very well be a healthier work environment, but that does not guarantee AEW sells more tickets or gains more viewers on television. It just means everyone likes each other and nothing more. It does not guarantee that it will translate to a hot product on screen. Sure, it could help, but those results are not promised.

Two sides not being fond of each other is nothing new in professional wrestling. We have all watched and listened to countless documentaries and podcasts about the drama behind the scenes in professional wrestling. Hell, it’s basically the entire ethos behind the industry’s premiere docu-series, “Dark Side of the Ring.”

Yet AEW seemingly had no idea how to handle all of the egos at play, let the situation grow out of control, and lost its stop star as a result.

At the end of the day, this should have been nipped in the bud a long, long time ago. I figured the melee at last year’s All Out would be the worst of it. I figured all of these grown adults would learn from that embarrassment and either get on the same page or eventually just let bygones be bygones.

Instead, they did neither, making themselves look very immature in the process. On top of that, the drama overshadows all of the quality wrestling AEW produces on a weekly basis. Even when AEW set a world paid attendance record for pro wrestling last week at Wembley Stadium, most people were discussing the nonsense involving the AEW locker room and how messy it was.

To me, all of that did a disservice to everyone who helped AEW reach such exemplary heights.

So what now? For Punk, it could mean a return to WWE. It could also mean he is done with wrestling all together. For AEW, it is time to pick up the pieces from a disaster it could have avoided months ago. Ideally, AEW — from top to bottom — will learn from this situation and never allow it to be replicated again. Because what good actually comes from it all?

Regardless of what happens next, we should look back on Punk’s two-year term with AEW as a slew of missed opportunities due to egos that were never put in check.

And because of that, everyone lost.