Allin feels ‘The Scapegoat’ is where he needs to be.
A full year has passed since the physical altercation between CM Punk and Jack Perry at AEW All In 2023. Their scuffle led to Perry being indefinitely suspended and Punk being fired from the company.
Perry is currently the reigning TNT Champion and since winning the belt, he’s had five successful title defenses. The different versions of Perry’s on-screen character over the years was discussed by Darby Allin.
Allin told the New York Post that Jungle Boy had a shelf life, the ‘Hollywood’ version of Jack was not believable but the current version is exactly where he needs to be. He said if anyone benefitted from the All In incident, it’s Perry.
Honestly, it sounds crazy, but it’s awesome. Because when he was Jungle Boy, I felt like it was just too hokey and had a shelf life, if that makes sense. Like there was a glass ceiling with Jungle Boy, and then when he first became a bad guy, Hollywood Jack, or wherever the hell he was, it just wasn’t believable. Nothing he was doing was believable. It felt like a horrible made-for-TV Lifetime movie network character.
If anybody’s benefited from the incident that happened last year at All In, it’s Jack Perry, because now what he is, I feel like is kind of where he always needed to be.
On the topic of a potential new television deal for AEW, Darby stated that when it happens, it does not mean it’s time to get comfortable.
Everybody literally needs to work harder. Once we get a new TV deal, it’s not time to be like, oh yeah, let’s celebrate. Like, which is fine. I think when someone makes a lot of money, they almost feel like they don’t have to work. They feel like people have the best work ethic when they have nothing, they’re broke, they’re like, living paycheck to paycheck. That’s the work ethic we need to have at all times.
Both Allin and Perry were featured at AEW Grand Slam. Allin competed in the main event of Dynamite. On the 9/28 Collision, Perry defended the TNT Title against Minoru Suzuki.
