Another in our weekly series of reviews covering RING OF HONOR DEE-VEE-DEEZ! For more information visit www.ROHWrestling.com and don't forget to buy a few DVD's of your own while there. This week in honor of Colt Cabana's last appearance for Ring of Honor we're reviewing "Straight Shootin' With CM Punk + Colt Cabana," filmed July 1st, 2005. Yesterday we brought you Pt. 1 of the review, now it's time for Pt. 2. Let's get down to shootin'!
When we left off Punk and Cabana were telling stories about getting Harley Race drunk and having him puke in Punk's new Monte Carlo and talking about how they watched guys like Shawn Daivari break in paying dues the same way they did - setting up and tearing down the ring and always hanging out at shows. As we return Punk is talking about how they ended up working so many matches together, simply because they had trained together and knew what each other was capable of, so for promoters it was easy to book them both knowing they'd put on a good match. As they say in wrestling, Punk and Cabana were "married together" having a series of matches against each other all over the place, leading them right into Ring of Honor. Punk asks Cabana if he has any Gold Bond Mafia stories. Cabana reveals the Gold Bond Mafia started as a rib by his college roommate trying to get Cabana to put Gold Bond on his nuts because of the tingling sensation it caused. From there it took on a life of its own as they'd all put Gold Bond on their balls on road trips, and this is seriously one of the funniest parts of the DVD because Cabana describes it the way RVD would a bong, "DUDE THIS IS AWESOME" and the whole nine. They even had slang for it - "everybody BOND UP." Punk says it peaked when they did three shows in three days with no sleep and then hit a Comic Con afterwards. Punk starts naming off indie guys who were at the Con - Jimmy Jacobs, Mike Quackenbush, etc. Apparently they were doing matches all throughout the con every 15 minutes and Punk says that they were cocky and loopy from lack of sleep so they were talking down a little to other people, saying they wanted to work this guy and that guy and basically calling all their own shots and booking themselves. Punk wrestled Chucky Smooth and was managed by Dave Prazak, and Prazak had the Gold Bond powder and at the right spot in the match was just going to unload the whole bottle into Chucky's face. The whole match was comedy, like midget spots where Chucky would bite his ass and Punk would complain to the ref about it, then Chucky would bite the ref's ass, and so on. Spot after spot after spot 'til they were both so tired their hands were on their knees, then they did a double eyepoke and a double clothesline. The organizer Tim Lyle was ticked at them for doing a comedy match and said they were making a mockery of professional wrestling. Punk: "Fuck you dude, we're at a Comic Con, whatever! I hadn't slept in 3 days, I just wanted to have fun." Cabana: "Trailer Park Kid came in, he started getting the best of you, I came in, beat him down. It was me, you Chucky and Prazak, and then we started douching him with Gold Bond Powder! And then we started doing the can-can in the middle of the ring, like with the Gold Bond Powder going up. And then Chucky Smooth was like, I think he used to be in a fake rap group, the something mafia, and he came out and it was like 'Gold Bond Mafia man' and fuck we were the fucking Gold Bond Mafia after that." They show pictures at the Con with the X-Men and Stormtroopers, and then a picture of Punk and Cabana together with Scooby Doo.
After a transition shot the GBM stories continue, where they list the original line-up as Cabana, Punk and Prazak with Adam Pearce eventually more or less being in it because "he knew a good thing when he saw it." They refer to someone in the pics as "Bikini Girl" because as Punk says no one honestly knew her name, but for whatever reason she lived or died by the Mafia and probably felt like she was a member herself. They basically got her to drive them hundreds of miles in her family's van so they didn't have to put the miles on their own cars or pay for gas, and Punk says he doesn't mean to be degrading but so many women in the business are RATS and Bikini Girl was their rat. "Oh I wanna be a wrestler, I wanna train. I NEVER SAW HER GET IN THE RING. When she finally did, alls it took was like a good forearm shot, and she was done. So we always kept her in check, but she would be Bikini Girl, she'd wear a bikini and walk around the ring before we started, and take everybody's ring jackets and whatever." Cabana: "We made a spot for her, or whatever, so she could drive us, and nobody would be putting miles on their cars." Punk: "Sometimes we weren't getting more than 30 or 40 bucks from Ian and that, we certainly weren't getting trans, so we'd always fill up that Bikini van, we squeezed blood from that stone for everything she was worth. She thought she was the den mother and we fucking let her believe that."
From there Punk and Cabana start shooting on "Fake AWA" and Dale Gagne, and Punk goes out of his way to point out that is real name is Dale GAG-NER. "Great worker though, great businessman." Gagne would only book five guys for a show, so everybody would work double gimmicks, like put on a Doink the Clown mask. They worked a carnival in Minnesota where Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissy was their manager, and the promoter wanted to turn him face. Punk: "So he goes out to the ring and tries to start a U-S-A chant. I don't know, no rhythm or what, but this is the exact chant. Cabana!" Cabana: "Youuuuu-S-ayyyy-U-S-A-U-S-A-youuuuuuu-S-A-U-S-ayyyyyyyyyy." Punk talks about how they did an AWA show by piling 15 people into a big van and going to a casino where they had outdoor cottages. Wrestlers are broke, so of course they made off with everything not tied down, all of the bagels from the continental breakfast, and Punk claims Cabana still has a toaster for the hotel. There was a voucher book where you were supposed to get $5 in the casino when you checked in, well Punk grabbed the whole book. In the room Punk would sign all the slips, then they would go to the different stations in the casino to cash them in (actual cash not casino chips) and then after they hit them all they'd wait 15 minutes, swap shirts and hats, and do it all over again. Punk ended up $180 up for the night while everybody else was gambling, getting drunk, and losing all their cash. They were bored and restless so Punk crawled through the ceiling to where a big redneck wrestler named Butch McClane was, and Cabana stood there in the doorway waiting while McClane was laying in bed, stalling him with small talk, and suddenly Punk pulled back the ceiling tile and SPLASH he got hit with three buckets of water. As Punk and Cabana tell it it was one wild prank after another, how they got into a golf cart jousting war with George 'The Animal' Steele (seriously), Iron Sheik would be there, et cetera. Cabana had his eyes opened by the whole experience since everybody got paid well and started to realize if you were smart about how you promoted there was more than just one game in town.
Punk tells a story about how four of them all got together for a Battle Royal and came out wearing Doink the Clown costumes. Punk: "How about the time we got kicked out of Canada!" Cabana says there was big show with Lawler, Roadkill & Doring (with their ECW belts), and a whole bunch of guys. They meet in Michigan, go up to Canada, Punk: "I was just going to go over the border and wrestle, I didn't know." Apparently you have to have work permits to wrestle in Canada, they're with an announcer named kevin Harvey in a tux, and they all look like goofs, and none of their stories match when the border security interviews them. They even freak out about Punk's multi-vitamins, thinking he has drugs, which may be the funniest part of this whole thing given his Straightedge lifestyle. When they got thrown out of Canada they went back to Kalamazoo and "there were parties everywhere" so they'd just crash the frat parties and Punk would confiscate all the razors he could find. "I had Mach 3's for DAYS!" They go back to more pics. Cabana: "Me, you, BJ, Hero, Suicide Kid." Cabana and Punk both think Suicide Kid would be in ROH today if he hadn't gotten hurt. I think out of all the pics, my favorite is Chris Hero and Colt Cabana standing together, and Cabana is dressed up like The Toxic Avenger. It's funny how much Hero keeps coming up in this part of the DVD, even though he wouldn't be an ROH regular until 2006. Punk tells a story about he and Hero nearly started a riot in St. Andrews Hall in Detroit by razzing the fans in the front row.
Punk and Cabana tell some Mall of America stories, including how they found a store named Beads-R-Us and set up a big gimmick where Ace and Punk were waiting at the entrance and Cabana would keep walking up, looking back at them, walking up, walking away, and when he finally walked up and the woman working asks what's up he says "You sell beads right?" She nods. He mutters: "Do you umm, sell anal beads?" She asks him to repeat himself. He gets a little louder each time until she finally hears him and then gets this horrified look on her face. "NO!!!!!" He turns around and looks at Ace and Punk, and shakes his head, and they hang their heads down and Punk kicks a flower pot in dissapointment as the horrified employee looks on, not realizing she's been Punk'd quite literally. They also found a kiosk selling wrestling videos and made fun of the guy since he didn't know they were wrestlers, asking him all the "mark questions" like "I heard the Ultimate Warrior was dead! I heard there were three different Ultimate Warriors" and all this stuff. They talk about how Virgil is at every con they go to, including a Horror Con in Jersey, and how it ends up being Punk, Virgil, Raven, Lollipop, Francine and Missy Hyatt are all there. Hyatt didn't know Punk wasn't in wrestling and tried to treat him like a mark and get him to throw out his garbage when she was done eating. Punk: "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" They ended up getting into a loud fight. "I don't really know her, but I don't think I'd get along with her."
The long and short story of this DVD is Punk and Cabana reminiscing about their wrestling careers to date, all the whacky adventures they had. Nobody filming has to interview them or ask them any questions, because between the two of them they have enough memories and pictures that they can just look at each other and go "Remember the time when we..." and it launches into another story. Punk closes with a story about how he was working a job he hated where if he had stayed he'd be making six figures, but he was using the job to sleep under his desk "so I could get up and drive to a show to make $30." In fact he was ecstatic when he got fired, because it freed him up to really devote himself to his wrestling career. "Wrestling was #1, it always was and always will be, and nothing else fucking matters." Cabana; "Same thing goes for me. I went to college to get a degree, and I took a job as a teaching assistant, and I'd get 8th and 9th period off so I'd go sleep in the gym office. I would use the color printer, the copier, to make gimmicks, I would burn CD's at work. I would make copies of the Macho Man CD's and sell them at a show for $3 a pop. I would use the copier and make black'n'white 8 by 10's. We had the wrestling business, and we still do, and fortunately we can make a living in wrestling now. I could be a wizard in marketing right now (Punk: And you are with gimmicks) but we're not we're pro wrestlers." Punk: "It comes down to our friendship, I put everything behind wrestling, but he was always there. It could be four in the morning, pouring rain in Detroit, and I could call him in Chicago and he'd come get me. We were just there for each other. We watched Danny and Ace drift apart but I can't ever see that happening with me and you." And hopefully in WWE, they'll get to bring that chemistry back yet again. THIS DVD IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for all fans of Punk, Cabana, ROH or professional wrestling in general. Great stories, great times, great fun to watch again and again.