TNA Wrestling Hall Of Famer Shares Honest Thoughts On WWE Star CM Punk

WWE

A soon-to-be TNA Wrestling Hall of Famer has shared their honest thoughts on CM Punk after a past WWE dark match went awry.

Amazing Red made his TNA Wrestling return at Slammiversary in June, with the announcement that he would be inducted into their Hall of Fame at Bound for Glory later this year.

The three-time TNA X Division Champion recently appeared on Insight with Chris Van Vliet and spoke about a WWE dark match that he had in 2005 that led to issues involving CM Punk.

With CM Punk not signed to WWE at the time of the May 10, 2005 match, Amazing Red would discuss what went on during their encounter, saying:

“One of the things about me doing stuff like this is that my memory has been jacked, and yes, I can jot it down to pro wrestling and getting concussed and knocked, but I don’t remember how it started. But I know it was through friends looking out for me.

“I’ve never wrestled CM Punk at this point. It was supposed to be a squash match. It was supposed to be me versus Matt Morgan, maybe. I was supposed to lose in like two seconds.

“I was like, that sounds cool. I was still ready for it, and I think it was Sgt Slaughter. Somebody called me by my government name and said, ‘Come here.’ I came over there, and one of the referees said, ‘Hey, Red’s got something else coming up. So Red’s gonna be pre-show, and you’re gonna have a dark match, and you guys do this.’ So they gave Matt somebody else, a different kind of wrestler.

“So then my cousins were there, and Jimmy Wang was there, and they were like, yo, when they give you dark matches, that means they’re looking at you to get signed. So I was like, all right, cool, cool. I’m nervous. I see CM Punk. I’ve known him from ROH, but we never chatted as much. He was very cool with me. We came up with cool ideas. Ricky Steamboat was the agent.

“Can I be transparent? This is how things went in my eyes, right? Ricky Steamboat wanted CM Punk to get signed. He needed CM Punk to get signed, obviously, right? So, right before this match, what I was hearing is that CM Punk, this was his last-ditch effort to be signed. I’ve heard he just wrestled with Val Venis and it was not good, and he was blown up. Or CM Punk told people he was sick, and they were like, Red, this is his last effort. So that’s added more pressure to me.

“So then we go to the agent, and Steamboat was just giving him everything, ‘CM Punk will do this, this, and this.’ Then he asked me to do a heel thing. He said, ‘You ever wrestled heel before?’ I was like, yeah. Because at this point, I’m thinking he’s telling me to be a heel so CM Punk could be a face. I’m like, yes, I wrestled heel before, but look at me and look at him. It’s not gonna work. CM Punk respectfully tells me, ‘Listen, we’ll do whatever you gotta do.’

“Being very transparent here, the moves that I wanted to do: Code Red, my flatliner, my standing shooting star. I wanted to get that out in the world that I made this up at that point, because you’re on WWE. Once this happens in WWE, it is officially yours. Every time I mentioned something to him, I don’t know if it was him, but every time I mentioned something to him, it came back and got vetoed. ‘You can’t do a shooting star. Kidman does it, and Paul London said Kidman’s gonna get hot.’ ‘You can’t do Code Red because Rey does it, and he’s gonna get hot. You got this move, you can’t do that move.’

“So Jimmy Wang is my boy. He’s like my brother, and he’s not gonna lie to me. So he’s coming up, and he’s like, ‘They’re kiboshing all your stuff, bro, purposely.’ It felt like no one wanted me with a job here. I’m like, okay, that sucks.

“I wrestled with CM Punk, at the time, the match didn’t feel good at all. We just kept messing up and botching and going to different things. We go to the back. CM Punk gets taken by Johnny Ace. I’m there like waiting for CM Punk just to say thank you. I know the match wasn’t that good, and Steamboat’s just following him, saying, ‘Give him one more chance. Give him one more chance.’ Damn, I’ll get some receipt for this. Johnny Ace comes out of the room with CM Punk. He was in the room. He comes out of the room. He goes, ‘Hey, have you ever wrestled in a big ring before?’ I said, Yeah. He said, ‘Where?’ I said, All Japan. When I said All Japan, that blew his mind because that’s where he came from. It was All Japan. He was touring there. He was like, ‘You were in All Japan?’ I was like, yeah, I was in All Japan. ‘How long?’ I said like three months. He was like, ‘Well, you look blown up, so we’ll give you a call.’ I did the unprofessional thing of saying, ‘I look blown up?’ Because I was just wondering. I know what he means because when we did mess up, we didn’t go to the different positions right away. We kind of had this, like, deer-in-the-headlights moment, so I guess he took that as you look blown up.

“He told me that, I said, ‘Anything else I have to work on?’ He said, ‘Yeah, get bigger.’ He walks away. I see CM Punk come out the door. Walks away. What’s going on? Jimmy Wang comes up to me, and he goes, ‘Bro, you could tell wholeheartedly that was all him. You did all of your stuff. You sold well, blah blah. Everyone loved you in the back, and it sucks.’ That’s how it has to be.”

Red would then take a look at a second opportunity he got with WWE

“Fast forward to when I got my second chance at the WWE. I was supposed to get squashed by Ryback. He was supposed to beat up three jobbers. I don’t remember the year. I know that it was a lot of controversy that I showed up at No Way Out.

“It was like he was having a dark match, and I was just there because they asked me to pull up. I was one of the jobbers supposed to get beat up by Ryback, get thrown through a table. Ryback said, ‘How much you weigh?’ I was like, why? He said, ‘Because I’m gonna throw you through the table.’ That’s the first time I ever met him. I’m like, okay, I’m getting thrown through the table.

“Somebody shouts out, ‘Red’s not doing that. Red has something,’ and I got taken away from that. I didn’t do that either.”

CM Punk would still be on Red’s mind, however, with the star having moved from OVW to ECW in June 2006, securing his spot on the WWE main roster, revealing:

“From that moment, I was thinking I wanted to tell CM Punk something, like talk to him, and CM Punk shows up. I’m at the doctor, and I felt someone hugging me from behind, ‘Red! What’s up, man? What’s up?’ And I turn around; it’s him, and I don’t know what belt he had on, but he had on a belt. It was probably the world title or like one of the biggest belts.

“And I’m like, you know what? I’m not gonna tell him anything, because it’s just so much, at this point, water under the bridge. But I was very bitter about that day, just because I feel like it was my opportunity also to be signed, and I didn’t get that. But I was bitter about it, where I felt like he ruined it for me. But I’m grown now to understand he had a job too. This was his thing, no hard feelings.

“That’s why a lot of my guys who find out the story, they’re like, ‘Oh, CM Punk, you probably hate him.’ I said, ‘No, no, I don’t hate him. I love that dude, honestly.'”

Amazing Red recently defeated Zilla Fatu for the HOG Crown Jewel Championship, with the Bloodline family member debuting on WWE NXT this week.

The WWE Signing That Never Was

For much of his early TNA Wrestling run, Amazing Red was a standout in the cruiserweight class, going on to add an NWA World Tag Team Championship reign (with Jerry Lynn) to the three-time X Division Championship record.

An inspiration for the likes of Will Ospreay, it should come as little surprise that Red holds such a place in the hearts of stars to this day.

Ospreay last faced Red at HOG Born Again in November 2021, with the future AEW star securing the win, marking only their second singles match. They first faced each other at NJPW Super J Cup 2019, with Ospreay winning that first round match.

Red would note that he was set to compete in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic of 2016, although an injury suffered during a mocap session for that year’s WWE 2K game would contribute to nixing those plans.

While Red would address the possibility of a WWE signing by saying to Van Vliet, “I’m hoping. Like I said, WWE, AEW, TNA. If everything aligns well and we can work out something, I would be happy to be a part of anything”, it remains to be seen whether this emerges,

That said, the Hall of Fame induction could play into the stars favor, particularly with the TNA Wrestling and WWE partnership that remains a feature of both companies.

To make sure you stay up to date with all the biggest wrestling and WrestleTalk news, follow us on Threads by clicking this link!

• wwe
• cm punk
• tna wrestling
• Amazing Red

Share this article with friends