Dave Meltzer Breaks Down CM Punk's Explosive AEW All Out Media Scrum, Talks Fallout From Backstage Brawl & More! - Exclusive

On September 4, 2022, CM Punk not only reclaimed the AEW World Championship in the main event of All Out, he also let the world know his unabashed feelings about many in the company during his explosive post-show media scrum. Covered in blood and wielding a plastic bag of lime-flavored Spindrift, the Second City Saint began his screed by questioning Wrestling Inc. Senior News Editor Nick Hausman about his supposed friendship with fellow AEW star, Colt Cabana. The room sat in silence as Punk continued venting about his issues with Cabana as well as many other All Elite wrestlers, including "Hangman" Adam Page and AEW EVPs The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega.

While Hausman was front and center for the exchange, a more tenured pro wrestling journalist sat right over his shoulder. Dave Meltzer has covered multiple high-profile pro wrestling media events over the years, but even by his standards, this scrum seemed extraordinary. In this interview, Hausman and Meltzer take a deep look at the roller coaster ride that was the AEW All Out media scrum and discuss the ensuing fallout.

I want to thank you so much for taking the time. I reached out because you were sitting right over my shoulder.

Yep.

All of the moments of that day are very vivid for me still. And I even remember just before I sat down, you walked in and I turned around and I said, "Hi Dave, it's Nick Hausman with Wrestling Inc." And you said, "Nick, I know who you are." And that was already a win. That was already a win for me, I was like, "You know what? I'm feeling accepted here. That's good." And then everything else happened. So, obviously I have my take on it, but going through, you've been around this business for years, man, what's going through your head when you see something like this happen in real time?

That was weird, because I wasn't really prepared for it and I didn't ... It's going on, I'm just kind of paying attention. I didn't really digest it until I found out that there was a fight backstage and I started getting text messages from people asking about it. And at that point it was like, "Oh my god, this is all tying in. This is a big story all of a sudden." At first, I just thought it was Punk venting, and that's definitely all I thought. "Oh he's venting and that's fine, whatever."

When he talked about Adam Page had never done anything in the business, it was like "Okay, I don't like where this is going." Because he just really insulted the entire company at that point. And then the stuff about the [EVPs] and everything ... A week before, I think it was, there was a quote from Punk in Sports Illustrated where he said that the EVPs DM'd Dave Meltzer to say these things.

And I didn't think of it at all. I just looked and go "Ah, another wrestler." You know what I mean? It's almost a daily thing, a wrestler complaining about something that they don't really know anything about and everything. But I should have ... I know the guy well enough that I probably should have, as soon as I saw that quote go, "Dude, it didn't happen. I can just tell you it didn't happen. Nothing close to that happened." But I didn't, and I'm not saying that would've stopped any of this, because it probably still would've happened. But it's like, I sort of do feel guilty about that aspect of it. I should have just told him, "No, that didn't happen." Then he is going through this whole thing and it built up for another week in him, I suppose ... And that's what we saw.

I could kind of relate a little bit with you on that, Dave. First of all, it's not your job to reach out to people, you're a journalist. You don't need to say if you're a source, who your sources are, whatever it may be. That's nobody's business.

I know it's like isn't my job to defuse situations. But I do think he believed that, and it was incorrect, and because of that I should have just ... But yeah, it's in the company and my job is to report on the company. My job is whatever. I mean, there's a lot of assumptions that were made by a lot of people. The thing about it was, I had written, I don't know, it was two weeks earlier, three weeks earlier. And I kind of said, "Something's building here and they need to defuse it." And then they didn't do it. And then I'm watching this going, "Well that was something that they needed to defuse." But by that point, I had talked to Tony Khan the day before about the situation. So I kind of thought, well he sees the situation and he's not ... You know what I mean?

And then I think just the whole thing kind of went off the rails, and you're kind of sitting there watching this thing go off the rails and you're just hoping, "Well hopefully when it's over he got it out of his system." I'm sure there's going to be some people upset with it, but people get upset all the time. There were people upset at him for months too. So it goes both ways. And then what happened afterwards was just one of those wrestling stories. It was a pretty big wrestling story and we're still feeling the repercussions of it.

Do you think that Tony knew what Punk was going to say? I've been going back and forth on that myself. Because of the way he reacted, right, he didn't cut Punk off. He didn't stop him ... What do you think?

He might have known something, but I think that it was more he was like us, kind of like, "Whoa, we're not expecting this." And just let it go and get it out of his system. I think that to an extent, I think that he probably would've let some of it go thinking it might be good for business and talking until it got out of control. But I can't believe that he would want one of his top guys to go essentially with Adam Page and say he's never done anything in wrestling. Because that's insulting your own company. I mean this guy was your champion. He was one of your top stars from day one. One of the guys who built the company, and the Young Bucks were even more, I mean they were the people who literally built the company with Tony and Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega from the very start ... [He's] basically saying that the company's worthless.

And I just thought, you don't say that in front of your boss, who's done overall an incredible job under very difficult circumstances. If you really look at AEW, yes, of course he's got the money, but a lot of people, I've seen so many people with money get into wrestling and go nowhere with it. I mean, this guy was very competitive with a big major company trying to put him out of business at every way it could from day one in a tough environment.

Then he had to deal with COVID, the COVID shut down, which hurt him a lot and hurt a lot of growth momentum and things like that. And came out on the other side and did very, very well. And doing million dollar gates now, which nobody, almost no company in history, even if you adjust for inflation, there's only a few companies in history that have ever done something like that. So I would think that sitting there knowing how hard — and goddamn, the guy's worked hard on it, how hard he's worked to build this company — for somebody to say that his stars have never done anything in wrestling, I thought that was... If I'm Tony Khan, that's not something that I would like.

I would say, "Don't go there," if you knew everything, but I think he didn't want to get into a big fight with his star in front of everybody because that would've been very, very embarrassing. So he just kind of let it go ... I suppose I could've started a fight with him for whatever reason, brought those same things up I'm bringing up now, but it's like, that's not my place.

Yeah, you, me both.

It's not my place to go in there. I could have said, "Hey, they were not leaking information to the media." But he didn't directly say that there, he said that in Sports Illustrated. So he was just saying that they were incompetent, and am I going to go in there and go, "Hey dude, they're not really incompetent." That's more Tony's role than me. And he didn't do it, so I wasn't going to do it.

Now you've known the Bucks for years, they have a move named after you.

Yeah, the move named after me, yeah.

How surprised are you to hear they got into a physical altercation? That seems very unlike them.

Yeah, I was really surprised that it turned out the way it was. I did expect a heated shouting match though, coming out of that, because I was just thinking when they hear what he said, they're not going to be happy, and nor should they be. But I didn't expect it to turn into what it turned into. But I did expect something was going to happen because it had to at that point; it went a little bit over the line at that point. And I thought the same might happen with Page, as well. I mean, you can insult Page to a degree, but I thought he'd already done the thing with Page on that television show, which never should have happened. I mean at least the scrum is not on your television show. Even though a million plus people saw it on YouTube.

You could tell on that "Dynamite" before All Out. There was something and everybody, they were, "Oh it's a work."

I knew it wasn't a work.

I knew when he laid down in that ring and started doing snow angels, I was like, those aren't snow angels of joy. These are snow angels of weird anger. I don't really know what's going on with the energy.

He was mad, he was mad at the thing from months ago, but it was months ago and everybody had moved on. And he could have gone and even said something, to a degree. But when you go in there and call the guy out and call him a coward and things like that, when he is number two, number three, number four babyface in the company, one of the top babyfaces, and kind of emasculate him like that. And that one, that was totally unprofessional. You don't do that to another babyface. If it's a heel, sure, maybe you can do it, but it's a babyface. And could it have built to a match? I suppose it could have, but Punk might have gone in there and gone, "I'm not going to work with the guy." So then you just even more wasted your time.

Tony and AEW have not outright said it, but Omega, The Bucks, suspended, the producers seem to have come back. Was Punk and Ace Steel, were they also suspended, or was this just a case of Punk got injured, no suspension necessary?

My impression is that those people are all, I guess suspended is the word. But with Punk it's a moot point because he's hurt and he's not going to be around for a long time either way. And who knows if he'll be back. I don't know, there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes right now that everyone's keeping quiet. And I know little bits and pieces, but I don't know that anyone knows right now if Punk will be back. Tony probably has an idea, and I think, knowing that Tony's a wrestling promoter, that he would like to have him back thinking that he's a draw, a merchandise seller and everything. But there's a lot of questions to be asked because he did go way over the line, and then it becomes difficult. And he's already had to deal with a lot of weird situations over the last month to say the least with the Paul Levesque stuff.

So I don't know exactly where his head would be at when it comes to a lot of these things ... I know that as tough as certain parts of the first couple of years were for the company, it is right now headed into a very difficult phase for him, I think, coming up. Because there's just a lot of moving parts and they've got to get the train back on. Not that they're doing bad, I mean the TV ratings are very good, but there's something that they're not quite on the tracks like they were a year ago either. So they've got to get that back, and they've got to kind of get some new guys hot and stuff like that, which you always have to do. But that's one of the things that they really have to do right now.

Yeah, for sure. And with the Bucks, what do you think? Think the Bucks back soon? Not so soon?

I have no idea what timeframe. I'm sure they'll be... I shouldn't even say I'm sure, but I expect that they'll all be back. I don't know, will they be back in a week, a month? I have no idea. And I don't think anyone really knows. I think there's just a lot of things going on behind the scenes that kind of are prolonging this, whether it's a legal thing, whether it's threats of lawsuits or whatever, that they're kind of treading on thin ice and not wanting to make any moves just yet.

Yeah, for sure. And with the Bucks, do you think there's anything to read into with the sneaker promotion with AEW right now? I know some fans are seeing that and thinking that may have changed the dynamic, right?

No, no, no. Because that's something that was arranged a long, long time ago. And AEW did not promote the shirt.

They were retweeting the sneakers, they put out a sold out thing.

Okay, Yeah. Okay. But they did not promote it on television like they were scheduled to do.

Their socials were though, their social medias were promoting the sneakers and things like that.

Yeah, but they didn't promote it on television ... And it didn't matter because it sold out instantly. But I mean the original thing was ... to promote it hard on television, and that didn't happen at all. So I think that they're willing to go in social media to a degree. Look, they haven't mentioned their names on television once ... And it's awkward as a viewer when Punk was the world champion and then we all watched him win the world title and now his name is never mentioned, and all of a sudden Mox is the champion after having lost to Punk. It's one of those things that hurt a promotion and so they've got to kind of get past that. It's just one of those tough situations; every promoter will go through them many, many times in their life, but this was one of them.

Well you talk about all the tough things that are going on in Tony Khan's orbit right now. And on top of that, he's also trying to launch or continue on the legacy of Ring of Honor on top of it. What do you think Tony's next move is with this? Are we waiting on a TV deal?

I think we're waiting on a TV deal, yeah. I don't know how easy it is. It's probably not easy to get at this stage, but I think that's what it is. And until then he's trying to keep it alive on television, putting championship matches and things like that on. And I think putting the title on Jericho at this point was a very good move, because it totally elevates the Ring of Honor Championship, now it's a main event title. Nothing against Claudio, but Jericho and Moxley are really the two big stars I think when I watch that TV, especially right now, and with Danielson as well. But those two really shine right now and they're kind of carrying the top of the card. So I think that having one of them holding the Ring of Honor title and the other one holding the AEW title is a good thing.

Do you think that the hold up on the ROH TV deal, maybe even the AEW streaming deal, is dependent on the next round of TV rights negotiations with Warner Bros. Discovery? Do you think they're kind of maybe waiting and seeing how that stuff goes before committing even further to Tony Khan?

I don't know that it's that. I think it's more WBD trying to figure out what it's doing next. I don't think it's so much the rights deal as that company is doing so many cost cuts. So agreeing to add cost is something that they're probably putting off. If there's a streaming deal, they would be buying stuff from Tony for content. And I think that those deals are kind of on hold because of the Discovery people. Their big thing is trying to cut billions off of the expenses. So to add expenses right now is something that they're probably not looking at doing.

Well you brought up how a year ago, AEW was a very different place than they are right now. A lot of things have happened since then, but one big thing was about a year ago, Cody started to make his exit from AEW, now he's in WWE. How much of an effect do you think Cody, now that we've had some time to look at it? Because Cody wasn't just somebody that was a performer, Cody was somebody that was in Tony's ear and was helping the product, and obviously the products change. How much of an effect do you think Cody leaving AEW had on the brand?

Well, it's hard to say in different ways ... I think it was a fantastic coup for WWE to get him at the time they did. Because it reversed a narrative that everybody wants to go to AEW and all of a sudden the guy who's one of the founders, basically, of AEW wanted to get out, and he had his reasons to do so. But I think it hurt AEW from a momentum standpoint, and I think it helped WWE a lot, especially when he went in there as the same character. Because all of a sudden it opened up a lot of eyes, because some people were just, " Ah, Vince will bury him" and this and that, and if Vince has got any brains, he will not bury him. He will push him to the moon because that will create more unrest in AEW.

If he buried him, that would be the greatest thing for AEW because if Cody, as good a talker as he is, went there and got buried, everybody would go like, "Oh man, they're just vindictive a**holes." But instead, Cody was being groomed for Roman Reigns before he got hurt and probably still is going to be going against Roman Reigns when he gets healthy. So it's like a lot of guys in AEW that previously might have not thought about going would be sitting there going like, "Oh, I mean that's a bigger stage and there's a lot of money there and maybe I can do better there." And I think it's caused a lot of unrest in AEW because of that. So I think Vince and Levesque and everybody, I think that they played the Cody thing perfectly and I think it was a big deal because whatever it was, the pageantry of WrestleMania really started a turnaround with WWE and kind of made them hotter than AEW.

And I think before that, when you're looking at a Wednesday AEW average attendance versus WWE Monday "Raw" average attendance, and AEW was winning as much as it was losing. It was a little bit ahead actually, which is unbelievable and it makes no sense, but that's not the case anymore. But the point is that at that WrestleMania time where I started to see that turnaround other than the West Coast show and things like that, their first time in some markets that AEW did great in, like they're going to do in Toronto. But I started seeing that difference and it came out of Mania. So whether that's the pageantry of Mania or Cody, I can't isolate one or the other, because they happened at the exact same time. But my gut will say it's a little bit of both.

So it's interesting, right, because Cody goes, he comes in the Vince McMahon era, last big Vince McMahon WrestleMania, he gets injured, he's going to come back to a whole new era. I think that's a kind of interesting thing because like you said, you would think he's still going to go after Roman Reigns and pick up that bit of booking from where Vince left off. You would think that, right? 

Yeah. I can't imagine not though, because he was very hot and they knew it. And it's not like there's an endless supply of opponents that Roman Reigns hasn't really run through. I mean they're, the ones they're talking about are Seth and Owens right now, and both of those guys, they've already been through that one before ... So I guess that you could do Lashley, but they haven't really heated Lashley up and Strowman. But that's been done before too. So they went with Logan Paul and obviously Dwayne, if they can get Dwayne obviously that's the big one.

I think that Roman and the Rock probably know each other pretty well and know that answer better than us. But I don't know about what you know about when Cody's coming back, but it would seem he's going to be coming back likely around Rumble, Mania season.

Yeah, that's when he should be back, that's Rumble. I mean, timing-wise, he's been real coy about not giving a date, but you can also do the math of when the surgery was and when eight months is. Which is usually seven, eight months, the recovery time for the torn pec surgery, and it gets you a little bit before Rumble. And so if that's the case, the smart thing to do is not announce him and have him show up at Rumble and win the Rumble. It's the exact same thing they did with many people, actually. That's one of their MOs is bringing a guy back from an injury at the Rumble and having him go to Mania.

But what if the Rock is available then, right? Do you do a triple threat? Would you put Rock, Roman and Cody?

No, no, no, no, no. I wouldn't water that down.

No? Okay.

You could do it, but I just think if Rock's going to wrestle, it should be one on one with Roman, and Cody can get the shot at another point in time. It doesn't have to be WrestleMania. They have other big shows and there's two days of WrestleMania if you want to do it that way. I mean, I don't know if they would do it that way, but I don't think there's anything wrong with Roman Reigns wrestling twice and promoting the hell out of that aspect of it too.

All right, well while I have you Dave, I did want to ask you a bit about the Vince situation. Now you've obviously covered Vince very in-depthly for many decades now. A lot of people said this day would never come. What do you think it was that ultimately was the moment that made Vince decide "I think this is the time, I've got to bow out." What do you think it was?

I think it was the second detailed Wall Street Journal article where it talked about whatever it was, the 7 million dollar, 7.5 million dollar settlement that was very graphic about a woman claiming that she was coerced into it, that her job prospects got worse when she stopped. That stuff, when you read that stuff, that's stuff that in this day and age you don't come back from. And the fact that he paid her so much money to be quiet for all those years. So I think that was the key thing really.

Do you think we'll see more shoes drop still with Vince or no?

I don't know. I don't think that there's any more payoffs from a company standpoint because I think that's been investigated. I think they would already be out if there was more, unless he hid them better and didn't hide these ones well, I don't know.

It's just interesting to me because you say in this day and age it's not something you can come back from, but you wouldn't know that from watching WWE TV and the way all the talent talk about Vince. It's a very, I don't know man. It's weird.

It's really weird, because in another company or another sport, that would never happen. The way you resigned, disgraced like that and everyone just... Those guys, you don't hear everybody jumping up and doing that ... But it didn't shock me, because wrestling is a weird business. But so many times when something happens in wrestling, I always try to go like, "Okay." Because I've covered football, I've covered, obviously covered a ton of MMA. I've covered basically every sport at some point or another. So I always think if this was the NBA or if this was Major League Baseball and something like this happened, how would the fans react? How would the media react? And wrestling is so weird because it's completely different. Or if I was covering the movies, or if I was covering politics, if a politician had this happen mean they would be so... Well actually, now...

I was about to say.

Now it might be different, but 20 years ago it would've been. Yeah, but if you had an NFL team owner in a situation like this, you're not going to have all the players just stand up for him when he was basically forced to divest himself of the company type of a thing.

Last question here ... Are any more Wrestling Observer yearbooks going to be released?

I hope so. I don't have a good answer to that, but I'm hoping so, for Christmas, I would like that to happen. Yeah, I think we got very ambitious and did several right in a row, so I would say yeah, but I don't have an answer right now.

All right. Hey Dave, I want to thank you so much for taking the time. Took you a couple minutes over here. Where do you want to send people to support you, find you, all those great things?

Just go to wrestlingobserver.com, and Brian Alvarez and I do three shows a week and I do the Observer Newsletter, which is the most in-depth stuff on pro-wrestling that there is. And I do my rundown show every Friday night with Garrett Gonzalez. And so we do lots of podcasts, lots of detailed information. If you're in the business end of wrestling, it's pretty much a must, and a lot of news and everything ... I'm always trying to look at what's happening in the future. So I hopefully guess right most of the time.