10 Amazing Wrestling Callbacks You Totally Missed
9. CM Punk With A Golden Nod To The Past
![MJF Samoa Joe](https://d2thvodm3xyo6j.cloudfront.net/media/2023/08/3467fb1a7f1dc832-600x338.jpg)
CM Punk is a thug.
Not, not because he's a temperamental fellow who would fight Haku if he thought he'd waved politely in Dave Meltzer's direction, but because T is for terrible, H is for hell, U is for ugly and G is for jail 'cause a thug can't spell.
CM Punk loved and idolised Tracy Smothers, who created that quite incredible catchphrase - one that's all the better, somehow, for not making that much sense. Smothers was a straight shooter who, after working some of the best (and earliest) ladder matches in the '90s, spent his twilight years on the indies. There, he cultivated a great reputation for imparting advice and being a good soul with the interests of the next generation in mind.
He dressed as the Golden Vampire to outwit the deeply missed Sweet N' Sour Larry Sweeney at an IWA Mid-South show in 2005, from which Punk took inspiration to fool Samoa Joe on the August 19, 2023 AEW Collision. With Joe expecting a tune-up match against a jobber, Punk struck him - that is euphemistic - with the GTS. Their now infamous date at Wembley was set.
Look, the GTS was more Tom Magee than Tracy, but it was still a nice deep cut.