Tony Khan: Not One Person On The AEW Roster, Including CM Punk, Has Creative Control

Tony Khan is excited to collaborate with CM Punk and it will be just that…a collaboration.

Many wrestlers have spoken highly about the creative freedom they have in AEW and have praised Tony Khan for working with them in a creative fashion. In the end, the AEW President has the final say, but he wants to make sure everything makes sense for the wrestler and the story.

“I don’t really understand some of the things he was asked to do before he left wrestling,” Khan said when speaking about Punk on a media call ahead of AEW All Out. “I don’t think some of that stuff made sense. I’ve told him, if I ever ask you to do something that doesn’t make sense, it’s not coming from a malicious place, if something doesn’t make sense, tell me and we’ll talk about it. That’s generally how I am with everyone. If someone doesn’t like something, I’m not trying to put stuff in that doesn’t make sense. Not one person, including Mr. Punk and everyone on the roster, has creative control. It’s not like WCW and that is one of the issues with WCW. When you have a person who has creative control in their contract, it can hold up the show. I don’t know how you get through TV doing that. I can’t imagine if I had to deal with that. What I do have is a lot of people I want to sit down and talk to and hear what they want to say. Just because nobody has a contractual right to tell me ‘you can’t make me do that, you can’t put me in that match,’ doesn’t mean I want to put people in bad situations or do things that don’t make sense to them or for their career or for the fans.”

Punk is set to make his AEW in-ring debut on Sunday at All Out against Darby Allin. Punk has spoken highly of Allin in media interviews leading up to the bout.

You can read why Punk thinks Allin is the perfect first opponent for him by clicking here.

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