Bringing Punk was a stupid decision on Tony's part and is the cause for the majority of AEW's woes past 2021. It was not even needed, he never improved the ratings that much and AEW was flying without him. But he got greedy since Punk was always his favorite toy since the beginning and always wanted to have him above all else. This led to Brawl Out and the numerous leaks which ruined AEW's reputation with fans starting to turn on them and separating in the two camps, and led to Punk's injuries that basically send the main event into a black hole for 2 years where nothing was moving forward because everything rested on one injured guy. In the process a shitton of people were either buried or sat there waiting while their hype and the hype for the overall promotion was just draining away. Punk would have been a good initial signing when AEW was starting up and lacking in talent, and would have created a lot of buzz in the process, but by 2021 AEW certainly didn't need him at all.
It doesn't help that Tony has veered way more into a WWE styled theme product and has gradually removed the things that made Dynamite distinct from WWE. Ironically enough Hunter has done the same and copied Dynamite instead and thereby made RAW at least not as bad or as insulting to the intelligence as it once was, so fans are a lot more lenient with it. And given that WWE has been dominating the industry for 20 years, it's a hell of a lot easier for them to keep that place than for AEW to overtake them.
It also doesn't fucking help that Kenny, their biggest star, has basically been on a leave for the past 3 years while Jericho is beyond washed, Mox has had problems staying healthy and Danielson is a mark who killed his own hype by wrestling random matches and refused to take the championship
On that note, getting Jay, Okada, Ospreay can certainly turn this whole thing around easy if you build it around them, but Tony certainly hasnt been on top of his game the past 2 years
