Tony’s Takes: Tony Khan fires CM Punk, ROH titles on AEW television, Jimmy Uso trade compensation, revisiting the WrestleMania 39 main event outcome

By Tony Donofrio, ProWrestling.net Contributor (@TonyDonofrio)

Greetings, Dot Net readers. My name is Tony Donofrio and I have been a pro wrestling fan for more than half of my life. I also worked as a contributor for the Pro Wrestling Torch on and off for the past 15 years or so (and continue to do so). I plan on writing this column for you fine folks every week or two, and it will focus on the current hot topics in pro wrestling. If you’d ever like to reach out or give me a follow, my X (the artist formerly known as Twitter) and Threads handle is listed at the top of the page. If a question is asked that I think is too in-depth for an X or Threads response, I’ll probably just write about it here in this column. A great community has been built here and I’m excited to be a part of it. So, here we go…

AEW

– I suppose there’s no better place than to start with everyone’s favorite topic – CM Punk. Over the past 12 months, I really hoped it was going to work out for Punk and AEW. When Collision debuted a few months back, it felt like a mini-rebirth for the company and almost like a fresh start for Punk and AEW alike. If you’d have told me that would’ve only lasted roughly 10 weeks before Punk was fired from the company I’d have been surprised but not completely shocked. Having said that, as much as I wanted to see it work, I’m actually quite happy that it didn’t this time and we can all move on.

I won’t be surprised if his termination ends up in court, but at least we won’t be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tony Khan was in a tough spot. That doesn’t mean I have sympathy for him, as he allowed himself to end up in that spot. But he made the right call at the end. Since March of 2022, there’s been a common denominator in all of AEW’s major backstage problems – CM Punk. If we are to believe reports, he couldn’t even shake William Regal’s hand on his first night in because of his old WWE grudges from ten years prior and Regal being a pal of Paul Levesque. Punk was basically given his own show every Saturday night to keep to his own devices and even that didn’t work. Again, Khan made the right decision.

– With Punk being gone, there’s no reason for Dynamite and Collision to have a “soft brand split” anymore. It was too early based on last night’s Dynamite to tell if Khan still plans on keeping that soft split going. There was no sign of Jay White (or Bullet Club Gold), The Acclaimed, Bryan Danielson, or Miro (although three of the four were promoted for Collision), but it’s possible plans were already in place for this week, as I’m sure Punk was originally part of those plans. But, there’s no reason for stories not being able to continue from one show to the next. With college football season now here, stories carrying over from the flagship Dynamite are going to be important to try to carry that audience over as much as possible. After all, we’ve had only one Saturday so far where Collision had college football competition (granted, there was also a WWE PLE) and the show died a quick death with viewership.

– Is AR Fox’s gimmick that he will fail up someday? I’ve never seen a guy that is booked to win so little get so many title opportunities. It has to be a running gag at this point, right? Here’s hoping that his loss to Jon Moxley was his last title opportunity for a long time. Well, at least on AEW TV. As Will Pruett has said, ROH and it’s TV doesn’t really exist.

WWE

– I assume Cody Rhodes is the talent being traded to Smackdown for Jey Uso. It would only make sense to get Rhodes back onto Smackdown so he can “finish the story” and continue/conclude his feud with Roman Reigns. Kudos to WWE for also treating this like a legit sports transaction. More often than not, wrestlers will move over from brand to brand with no explanation and they just end up on the other roster. I assume it would’ve gone down like that if Vince McMahon were still running the day-to-day creative. Hats off to Paul Levesque for actually maing the roster moves make sense. Even if it doesn’t end up being Rhodes that moves to Smackdown, there is a plan to move someone over, which is better than most moves we’ve seen explained (or even not explained) before. Plus, it’s something to look out for and is being used as a vehicle to push a story. You can’t ask for anything better than that.

– Five months have passed since WrestleMania 39. In that time, WWE has introduced another world title and Roman Reigns has defended his Undisputed World Title once…once. More than enough time has passed since WrestleMania to say this: Cody Rhodes should’ve beaten Roman Reigns. The current Bloodline story seems to have lost some steam, especially since SummerSlam. Jey Uso being moved to Raw also muddles that some now. As stated above, I assume Rhodes is moving to Smackdown to finally “finish the story.” It should’ve finished in April.

None of what Reigns has done since April with the Bloodline has necessitated him holding his title. This also would’ve eliminated the need for the WWE World Heavyweight Title that Seth Rollins now holds. The Intercontinental and U.S. Titles felt a lot more prestigious while Reigns was the company’s lone World/Universal Title. Thanks to Gunther and his lengthy IC Title reign, that title still feels important. However, the U.S. Title definitely has lost a lot of luster. Stranger yet, is that the U.S. Title lives on the same show as Roman Reigns. That means Smackdown is, basically, running without a world title and a weakened mid-card title. Despite that, Smackdown does still keep putting up great viewership numbers so maybe it doesn’t matter that much…for now anyway. I’ve always liked the idea of one world title in one company. Even with a solid brand split like WWE is currently holding to, I’d have preferred to see one champion float between the brands. It worked fine for the one year that Reigns did do it. Imagine a wrestler that would be around more to defend it and float back and forth properly pulling this off. It could’ve happened that way. It should’ve happened that way.

Other Promotions

– I have absolutely no problem with talent contracted to ROH showing up on AEW TV and pay-per-views. They all work for Tony Khan. There’s no reason he can’t use talent as he wishes. Having said that, the ROH titles should not be on AEW television. There were two ROH title matches at All Out this past weekend. There was supposed to be a third, but Billie Starks couldn’t get medically cleared to face Athena for her ROH Women’s Title. I’d love to see Athena on AEW TV. She has been doing great work but it’s all been behind the ROH paywall. She can still be ROH Champion. That doesn’t mean that she should be on AEW TV with the title and certainly doesn’t need to defend it on AEW TV shows or PPVs. The same goes for Claudio, Samoa Joe, etc. AEW is already saturated with titles. I had a friend who doesn’t know know much about pro wrestling at my house for All Out. Explaining the ROH/AEW divide and titles felt exhausting. Try explaining that to someone that doesn’t know what’s going on and you’ll see how silly this concept is.