As AEW builds toward its Dynasty pay-per-view in St. Louis on April 21, the promotion used Wednesday night’s Dynamite to unveil behind-the-scenes events at All In from Wembley Stadium last year in an effort to move the rivalry forward between the Young Bucks and FTR. The Bucks took the spotlight Wednesday night, showing the video incident involving “The Scapegoat” Jack Perry and “the other individual,” CM Punk.
AEW reveals footage of backstage altercation between CM Punk and Jack Perry at All In pic.twitter.com/a6tG4eoIFH
— B/R Wrestling (@BRWrestling) April 11, 2024
The Bucks claimed Punk tried to make the entire show about himself and that he was good friends with FTR, theorizing that maybe FTR were the masterminds behind this entire thing, and that while they were dealing with the fallout from this incident, they were thrown off from their game. They continued by saying that if you look in the history books, FTR beat the Young Bucks at All In: London, but there should be an asterisk because it threatened to take down the biggest show of all time.
FTR came out afterward and vented about the Young Bucks dragging video back up from eight months ago. Cash Wheeler continued and said they need to beat the Young Bucks at AEW Dynasty because they’re “petty, little bitches.”
The release of this footage comes one week after CM Punk shared his side of the story on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour, offering details about his backstage scuffle with Jack Perry following his infamous “cry me a river” comment. We didn’t have audio, but Punk’s description of the incident doesn’t seem far off from what played out on television (H/T Wrestling Inc for MMA Hour transcription).
“I walk up to him and I’m like, ‘Jack, why do you insist on doing this dumb internet s*** on TV?’ He’s like, if you have a problem, do something about it.’ I was like, ‘Come on man. I can f***ing kill you. What are we doing? … I thought I was doing the responsible thing. I didn’t punch anybody. I just choked somebody a little bit. Samoa Joe was there, told me to stop. I quit. I turned to Tony and said, ‘This place is a f**king joke. You’re a clown. I quit.'”
Speaking to Uproxx Sports ahead of the show, AEW CEO Tony Khan said it was important for the Young Bucks to explain why this footage is relevant. When asked on his reaction to Punk speaking out and if that impacted the release of this footage, Khan says, “That was interesting timing given where everything stands.”
“For us, this is a decision based on the timing of our upcoming pay-per-view, AEW Dynasty, and given where the Young Bucks stand going into the World Tag Team Championship Tournament finals at AEW Dynasty,” he said. “This was the right time and place for them to play this footage and talk about why it’s relevant to them and AEW going forward and what this means going into AEW Dynasty.”
The Bucks and FTR’s showdown will be their fourth under the AEW umbrella, and Khan expects another spectacle.