The wrestling world was set abuzz with speculation and intrigue following an incident involving CM Punk and Tony Khan that seemed to have hidden depths beyond what was initially reported. Wade Keller, a respected figure in the wrestling community, shed light on the matter during a PWTorch audio update, suggesting that there might have been more to the confrontation than met the eye, possibly shedding light on the cryptic references made by Tony Khan regarding his safety and well-being.
According to Keller, there was an incident involving Punk and Khan that remained undisclosed to the public. While Khan did address some aspects of the altercation in his press release and statement during AEW Collision, there seemed to be a hidden layer that took place away from the prying eyes of witnesses. Keller hinted at the existence of this undisclosed incident, saying, “My understanding is that there was something behind a closed door also that may come out or may not, depending on how all this plays out.” He refrained from divulging his sources but expressed confidence in the existence of this episode.
Tony only told people about.” He said, “My understanding is that there was something behind a closed door also that may come out or may not, depending on how all this plays out. When Punk quit and chewed out Tony, there was an element of that that was not in front of dozens of people that others have said they’re trying to get confirmation on but I’m confident in based on my sourcing, which I won’t get into. I think there’s other elements of it than just the monitors.”
It was further noted that Tony Khan said on Collision that CM Punk put his ‘life in danger.’ This further adds to the additional reports.
This “closed door incident” was separate from what was witnessed by onlookers during the confrontation between Punk and Khan, as revealed by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio. Meltzer described the physicality of the altercation as far more intense than initially reported, stating that “lunging” was an understatement when describing Punk’s actions towards Khan. The details of the exchange and the intensity of the encounter suggested that there was a deeper level of animosity than what met the eye.
Meltzer said the following about the Punk lunging incident that happened in front of witnesses before what happened in Khan’s dressing room: “It was probably stronger than that….lunging was, again, far too kind. If you saw the actual wording of what was said, lunging was like I was toning it down. It was more than lunging.”
Bryan Alvarez said: “And I had heard that when he moved towards Tony, whatever word you want to use, that the monitors there were like monitors that fell on Tony Khan. As you noted, there was security camera footage. So this was not something people were like, well, ‘How come there wasn’t security camera footage of the brawl?’ Well, it’s because that was inside a locker room. They don’t have cameras in the locker room. But this was Gorilla, and they had cameras all over the place.”
