Tony Khan Says CM Punk Deal Paid For Itself On The 1st Night

Tony Khan was a guest on the Dan Le Batard & Friends podcast recently. During the discussion, he spoke about the deal he made to bring CM Punk to AEW. Khan said he feels the deal was one of the best he’s ever made.

“I believe this was one of the best deals I’ve ever done in my life and I don’t think it was really all about money,” Khan said.

Khan would continue to talk about how he and Punk got to know each other throughout the pandemic by speaking regularly on the phone. He feels the trust they built is what led to the deal being completed.

“I spent a lot of time talking to him on the phone getting to know each other better and building trust with each other. So, this was a long time coming, we’ve been talking a lot for about a year and a half.”

Le Batard then asked Khan if Punk paid for himself on his first night.

“Yeah, I do think so. In terms of what this has done for our business, I really believe as soon as we saw the results from this, before we even got started I knew this was the best deal we could have possibly done.”

Khan also spoke about how Punk was very generous with his time backstage with wrestlers on Friday night.

“He was also really cool about going backstage and offering really, really kind advice, being very good with his time with the wrestlers.”

Khan also spoke about how the idea with The First Dance was that fans would be confident Punk would be there, but not 100% sure.

“The idea by the time the show started is that all the fans would be 99% sure CM Punk is going to be there, but that 1% doubt is what made it that much better than just advertising it,” Khan said.