Eric Bischoff Explains When He Would Have Fired CM Punk From AEW

Even if he has been fired, the discourse regarding CM Punk and AEW isn't going away anytime soon, especially as debate rages regarding whether AEW owner Tony Khan made the right call in letting Punk go. But it appears that Khan has an unlikely ally in the situation, in the form of frequent critic, and former WCW President Eric Bischoff. On the latest "83 Weeks," Bischoff reiterated an earlier tweet of his that Khan made the right decision, and that he was happy for AEW, and Khan. He does, however, think it would've been better if Khan had decided to let go of Punk sooner, though he admitted he didn't have all the information.

"I think it would've been better, in the long run, had Tony made this same decision months ago, when Punk had his meltdown at the press conference and made Tony look like a complete buffoon in the process," Bischoff said. "I would've pulled the trigger then, had it been me, but it wasn't me, and I wasn't familiar with all the circumstances, all of the issues. There's a lot of things I didn't know, and still don't know..."

Regardless, Bischoff reiterated that he was happy that Khan ultimately drew a line in the sand regarding Punk, and believes the AEW owner made the right decision. While Bischoff had been critical of Punk's star power in the past, he also acknowledged that said star power, and the loss of it, ultimately put Khan in a bit of a no win situation.

"At some point, you need to be a leader, and sometimes being a leader is really painful, really painful, because there's no good decision, there's only a correct decision," Bischoff said. "And the correct decision was to let him go. It's going to sting, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, probably in a lot of ways that aren't obvious to us. But it had to be done. It wasn't going to get better. It wasn't like Punk was going to wake up one day and decide to be a team player. It clearly wasn't going to happen, so at one point do you just go 'You know, I've had enough?' And clearly, Tony had enough."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "83 Weeks" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription