Rumor Roundup: CM Punk/Jack Perry backstage blowup, its impact on AEW All In, more!

Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill.

Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it’s just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take it all with a grain of salt.

Rumors for the Day:

• Based on what PW Insider heard, the altercation between CM Punk and Jack Perry backstage at All In happened in gorilla position and involved shoving between the two which led to Punk either punching or trying to choke Perry out.
• Following the incident, Insider says Perry was ordered to leave Wembley Stadium. Punk left an hour after his match with Samoa Joe opened the PPV. On this same topic, Wrestling Observer Radio’s Bryan Alvarez said both were removed from the building it just didn’t happen immediately in Punk’s case, likely due to his match.
• As it was, PW Torch heard the start of All In was “nearly” delayed as the incident left the production crew “scrambling to find a way to fill time if Punk wasn’t able to go out on time.”
• A version of the blowup relayed to the Torch is that “Punk pie-faced Perry and then restrained him in a facelock and threw some punches at him before he was pulled off.”
• Miro quote-tweeted a site’s account of what Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp called “CM Punk’s side” (that “Jack Perry approached [Punk], got in his face, bumped him. Punk shoved him, choked him”) and called it “fake and untrue”.
• Sapp summarized the “other accounts” of the incident as “Punk approached Perry, they exchanged words, Punk threw the first punch, grabbed a front face lock, it was broken up”.
• As to why Perry took a shot at Punk during the All In pre-show over their previous incident at Collision in the first place, Fightful Select heard Perry wasn’t happy about how that story was relayed to the media “by those close to Punk.”
• Understandably, PW Insider reports there are people at AEW concerned the Punk/Perry story will overshadow the success of All In.
• In happier news… Insider’s latest update on the new Joshi promotion coming to the United States mentions that their business model includes a “huge focus on developing short and long-form anime content related to the wrestling.” The only potential negative is the plan might result in “slightly modified names and characters” for the wrestlers who have signed, so as to avoid trademark conflicts.

If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you’d like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Just remember they are rumors and not confirmed as fact, so please take them as such. And check our weekly Rumor Look Back here to keep track of how often rumors turn out to be correct.