CM Punk vs. Amazing Red has been uncovered and released on the WWE Vault Channel.
Before signing with WWE, CM Punk wrestled a number of dark matches for the company. This includes bouts against stars like Val Venis, Scotty Too Hotty and even The Road Warriors.
However, Amazing Red only wrestled once for the WWE. The innovative Puerto Rican was a huge star in the indies in the 2000s. However, he sadly never made a long-term run in WWE. His size was likely a big issue although his performance against CM Punk in a dark match in 2005 did not help.
The WWE Vault Youtube channel recently released CM Punk vs. Amazing Red for the first time.WWE taped the match during an episode of Velocity on the 10th of May, 2005. This was Amazing Red’s sole appearance in the WWE, with the innovative high-flyer battling CM Punk in a WWE ring.
Nobody expected this match to be released, while few knew of its existence. The grainy VHS tracking and shockingly generic rock music for their entrances add to the mid-2000s feel of the bout.
The match is a short and simple one. CM Punk plays the heel in the bout, having a huge size and weight advantage over his diminutive opponent. The Amazing Red gets the better of him technically but Punk uses his strength and a little bit of cheating to get on top of Red.
The Amazing Red eventually got his comeback but stumbled as he tried to execute one move, ending in a simple roll-up. He managed to get some offense in but was not his usual impressive self in the ring. He was sloppier than usual and not his incredible self in his one dark match for the WWE.
CM Punk dodged a Swanton Bomb before hitting a Hammerlock DDT to win the match. The future WWE Champion was the more impressive of the pair. He signed a WWE deal soon after, which was no surprise.
Private Party owes a lot to Amazing Red
All Elite Wrestling World Tag Team Champions Private Party recently spoke with WrestleZone. When asked about turning down the managerial services of Stokely Hathaway, Zay said they want to do things on their own, and he already knows what working with “Big Stoke” is like.
When asked if someone like Amazing Red is an idea they’d be more interested in, Zay said he wouldn’t want him to be their manager but more of a teammate instead.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want him to be a manager. I’d definitely want him to be our teammate because that’s my guy and I love him,” Isiah Kassidy said. “And we owe a lot of our success to him because he basically told us from legit the beginning. And I still talk to him to this day. I still ask him for advice, I still picking his brain. So, to have him side by side with us, I think that would be pretty amazing. No pun intended.
“The cool thing about that is, everybody admits it. Everybody from Will Ospreay, Ricochet, all the greats. They all admit that Amazing Red is a true pioneer of what we do today. So, that’s pretty cool that people acknowledge that and it’s pretty cool that we actually… we are his trainees. So, that’s definitely something to appreciate. Which we really do.”
Amazing Red appeared on the AEW WrestleDream broadcast, hyping up Private Party’s tag team title match with the Young Bucks in a pre-taped video. You can check out our complete interview with Private Party in the embedded video below.
