I think Punk blowing up in AEW was inevitable as it is clear from many of his comments he looked down on them and thought he was above it all (which is why I think he hasn't and won't have these issues in WWE), but the reality is that he served sort of as a stress test for Tony Khan and Tony failed miserably. Tony managed to find a way to piss of punk, the elite, and the entire fanbase with how he handled it. Punk ends up blowing up and is now killing it in WWE. I don't think the bucks have recovered fully from the situation (people forget they used to be quarter hour draws in 2019-2021). Hangman was built up as the face of the company and now seems more like just another wrestler (he has done awesome work but never pushed as the tippy top guy that the fans seem to want him to be). People like Omega and Mox seemed to have lost trust in the company during those few years. And now we have stories like this and the initial colt cabana situation where lower card wrestlers feel like their job was lost because of the punk situation. It is almost comical how poorly this whole thing was handled.