‘This Book Is All Elite’ Author Explains Why CM Punk/Jack Perry Fight At AEW All In Was Not Covered In The Book

The author gives his reasoning.

Features of Wrestling pushed out a written interview with Keith Elliot Greenberg, the author of ‘This Book Is All Elite,’ which is an in-depth write-up about the history of All Elite Wrestling. The book includes exclusive interviews and information about the formation of AEW and the past six years of the company’s existence.

During the interview, Greenberg was asked why CM Punk and Jack Perry’s fight at All In 2023 was not covered. Here’s what he had to say:

“Some people have brought this up. Whenever I write a book, I’m always going to be criticised, and I take that for granted. Whenever I do an interview, I’m criticized sometimes by the same exact people on Twitter. I know their handles. By this point, they’ve criticised me so much, I know their names. So one of the criticisms I telegraphed in advance, and I even discussed this with AEW, was the people were going to be unhappy that I don’t talk about whatever chicanery occurred backstage that led to the departure of CM Punk. This is a tribute book. If I wrote a book about the New York Mets, which is my favorite baseball team, I even have a Mr. Met tattoo. I would talk about the two World Series runs. I would talk about their marquee players, but I wouldn’t talk about the fact that the owners at the time were supposedly investors with Bernie Madoff, this very corrupt financier who ended up, apparently, (stealing) millions of dollars from the U.S. Holocaust Foundation. The guy was just robbing everybody. As a fan, it’s a lot of suspicion that may have compromised the team, because who knows? Was Mets money being used? They said not. But as a baseball fan, as a fan of the team, you suspect things. But if the New York Mets asked me to do a tribute book about the New York Mets, I could do a really great tribute book, and not mention Bernie Madoff. So I was asked to do a book that is a tribute to AEW during the first five years, and that doesn’t belong in a tribute book, because really, we’re just talking about one or two incidents, but there’s a lot of backstage stuff in it, and a lot of positive backstage stuff in the book. There’s a lot about how Stadium Stampede came together and how The Acclaimed got their name, and why Tony Khan wanted to put Max Caster and Anthony Bowens on the same team. Let’s go to Mariah May, who’s now in NXT, and Toni Storm, the movie that inspired Tony Khan’s mind, that story. So it’s not like it’s all surface stuff. There’s deep stuff that you wouldn’t know about, and I don’t think the book suffers at all from not mentioning an unfortunate incident backstage.”

Back in 2024, Punk gave his recount of what occurred with Perry, and to read his remarks, head over to this Fightful article.