Alright, so why do we care about “a couple of the boys” in 2005 conducting a shoot interview for Ring of Honor Wrestling discussing (with obvious glee) the lengthy, degrading abuse inflicted upon a young woman hoping to train with them and become a pro wrestler? To me that question kinda answers itself -- and when you get to the horror show of pull quotes below, plenty of you might agree.
Yet as old as the clip down below might be, these two guys are very much part of the current conversation happening in the business today. We’re talking about one of pro wrestling’s most famous attractions, Phil Brooks (aka CM Punk) and his once-friend, now-bitter real-life enemy Scott Colton (aka Colt Cabana) -- the two settled lawsuits against each other over doctor’s fees in 2019.
Punk has been a key figure in billionaire Tony Kahn’s All Elite Wrestling (AEW) promotion (Tony is the son of billionaire Shahid Khan, who owns the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars). AEW’s primary rival is billionaire Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE — for whom Punk once wrestled), which recently was acquired by not-billionaire-yet Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor to be combined with not-billionaire-yet Dana White’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC — for whom Punk once fought) to form the new powerhouse media company, The TKO Group.
Whew, got all that?
From a business perspective, AEW faces two major challenges — launching a new two-hour live show on Saturday nights with Warner Bros. Discovery in June, and selling out a massive show at Wembley Stadium, the promotion’s largest to date (65,000 tickets have already been sold).
Speculation had been rampant Punk was a critical component to both the new show and Wembley ticket sales. Yet when the show was announced yesterday, no mention was made of Punk, suggesting ongoing fallout from a bizarre post-event press conference last year that prompted a real-life brawl in the locker room and several popular wrestlers to be suspended. Punk has not been seen on AEW programming since, though recently appeared to stir the pot by popping up backstage at a WWE event before being asked to leave.
Listen, all that’s a rabbit hole too petty, complicated and dumb to crawl into here, I only want to set the context for who these guys are.
And sure, 2005 was “a different time” (whatever the hell that flex is even worth), and men like Punk and Cabana could have spent the years between then and now taking an honest inventory of themselves, made time and serious effort to reflect on their actions and chosen to be accountable living their lives forward. For all I know, that happened here — I really hope so.
Right, that whole “angry-meltdown-and-backstage-fight” thing. We must concede the odds may be a touch lower than hoped for in the self-reflection department.
So that’s why we’re here, and trigger warning — these guys make all too clear their low opinion of women — “rats,” as Punk will call aspiring women wrestlers.
The relevant portion occurs between 55:28-58:59:
The section of the clip starts with Cabana (on the left up above) holding up a glossy photo from the old days:
Colt Cabana: “Here’s the Mafia, then in this other picture of the Mafia we got here… [turns to CM Punk]
CM Punk: “Okay, [Colt’s photo is] the Gold Bond Mafia, the original Mafia, the ones that, uh… I think Adam Pierce worked his way into it because Pierce knew a good thing when he saw it. The other ‘unofficial member’ of the Gold Bond Mafia — of course, if you asked any of us, she was not a member, but to her this was her world. I couldn’t even tell you her real fucking name. She is ‘The Bikini Girl.’”
If reading that text alone somehow doesn’t quite capture the utter contempt Punk has for this woman, trust me — listening to him say it is somehow worse. This is when Punk proudly holds up his own glossy photo, which depicts him standing behind “Bikini Girl,” two friends flanking him while both his hands grope her breasts. The cameraman zooms in to get a better look -- a little cherry on top of our misogyny sundae.
(Incidentally, Punk here name drops Adam Pierce, who currently has a major role on WWE television as an authority figure)
CM Punk: “[Bikini Girl] is strictly what we called her.”
Colt Cabana: “When we first saw her, I’ll be honest, me and Chuck E. Smooth were like, ‘Aw, this chick’s totally hot, this chick’s totally hot. And you know, we’ll tell the story how we eventually spent years with her, and at the end she was the ugliest, most disgusting girl of all time. I was grossed out by her.”
CM Punk: “I hated her.”
The gleeful force with which Punk expresses his hatred for this woman here should make his emotions crystal clear.
So why then would Punk and Cabana remain associated with someone they hated for such a length of time she’d come to consider herself an “unofficial member?” Turns out, she had a van. For “smartened-up” boys, a woman with a van had obvious uses:
Colt Cabana: “Everything that was about her was disgusting, but now the fact this proved the difference between some of the young guys growing up and some of the guys — we understood the work of it, how it’s a work, how it’s a business. And we got this girl every single week with her family van...”
[Nodding in agreement, CM Punk smirks at the van reference]
Colt Cabana: “...to drive us 300 miles every week, and not putting one mile on our car, and us knowing that, and not trying to pay for gas as much as we could…”
[CM Punk shakes his head as if to say “Oh, hell no”]
Colt Cabana: “And she loved… She wanted to train, we got her in the ring once and made sure to hurt her so she’d be out another two months, but she’d still be with us because she’s [air quotes] ‘dedicated.’”
Punk, perhaps sensing the need here for damage control at the suggestion they hurt a woman on purpose, takes the reins:
CM Punk: “The point is, and this is going to sound really degrading…
Oops, he’s going another way.
CM Punk: “The point is, and this is going to sound really degrading, but like, most women in the business are rats. And that’s a hard fact of life that you eventually realize. And she got in the business, at the time she’s like, [mocks feminine voice] ‘Oh, I want to be a wrestler and I want to train,’ I never saw her get in the ring. You know, it just never happened. And when we did get in the ring...”
So to recap, Punk never saw her get in the ring, but when they did get her in the ring… Okay, do continue.
CM Punk: “And when we did get in the ring, all’s it took was a good forearm shot [mimes a vicious blow] and that was it — done. So we always kind of kept her in check…”
Dear reader, does it sound like Punk and Cabana are describing one incident, or multiple? Your call.
This kind of straight-shooting talk is intended to offer helpful advice to young wrestlers trying to crack an extremely tough business (where the stars are “independent contractors”) — namely, don’t go being a woman now and expect any dignity or respect from boys like themselves:
CM Punk: “But she would be ‘Bikini Girl,’ she’d wear a bikini and walk around the ring when the show started, and take people’s ring jackets, and you know sunglasses...”
Colt Cabana: “We’d make sure there was a spot for her. Or not a spot, but just whatever, so she could drive us and no one will be spending, uh, putting miles on our cars.”
CM Punk: “No miles on our cars, no gas out of our pocket, you know what I’m saying? Because it was like, you know, we weren’t getting paid more than sometimes $30-$40-$50 from Ian and stuff like that, and we certainly weren’t getting [unclear]. So it was always like me, Chuck E.,[Dave] Prazak, maybe occasionally somebody else. We’d always fill up that bikini van and drive it down.
“How many [speeding] tickets did she get? None of us would ever drive, you know. [mocks feminine voice] ‘Oh, can one of you guys drive?’ [feigns fatigue] ‘No, I’m really tired.’ ‘Oh, I just got off of work, you know.’ I mean, that was the thing where somebody, a bunch of other young guys would probably just try and gang bang her and that’s the last you’d see of her, like…”
Cabana laughs along here, apparently at the thought any young fools might miss the gold mine and try for the one-time… (checks notes — nope, not writing that again), and I’m going to be sick.
CM Punk “We ate… we tried to get blood from that stone and we squeezed her for everything she was worth, you know? [squeezes fist tight]
Colt Cabana: “She always would have, like, snacks for us, too.”
CM Punk “Yeah. Yeah, because she’s one of these girls, her aspiration in life is to have a kid [sneers]. She wanted to be a mom, so she thought she was the Den Mother and we let her believe that. You know, evil [holds up two fingers to represent horns on his head]. Blah, blah, blah. And yeah, we would just randomly try to get her booked shows whenever we could just so we wouldn’t have to drive.”
Again, this may have been recorded almost two decades ago, but the hashtag #SpeakingOut trended in 2020 in that quaint little town square we once called Twitter, demonstrating perhaps not much had changed in all those years. From SI.com:
At least three male WWE wrestlers have also been accused of misconduct against women. Jordan Devlin, who wrestles for WWE’s NXT UK brand and was WWE’s Cruiserweight Champion until travel issues related to the pandemic forced him to drop the belt, was accused of physical abuse by a woman who shared photos of her bruised body.
Candy Cartwright, an independent wrestler, accused WWE’s Matt Riddle of pressuring her into performing sex acts while in a van with other wrestlers in 2018. Riddle, in Twitter direct messages to a British YouTuber whom he had previously been interviewed by, denied the allegation and accused Cartwright of harassing him.
The latter lawsuit above, coincidentally also purported to have taken place in a van carrying wrestlers, was settled out of court, according to Bleacher Report. Matt Riddle continues to strongly state his innocence and insists that he did nothing wrong.
Female wrestler Candy Cartwright dropped her lawsuit against WWE star Matt Riddle, according to TMZ Sports.
Cartwright's attorney, John Chwarzynski, provided a statement on the decision and said, "The parties have put this in their past and are focused on the future."
In a series of tweets she posted in June 2020, Cartwright said she, Riddle and others were traveling in a van in May 2018. She alleged that Riddle had asked her to have sex with him. When she refused, Cartwright said Riddle allegedly "grabbed me by my throat, choked me" and forced her to perform oral sex.
Riddle's lawyer, Daniel Rose, responded to the allegations without naming Cartwright and said they were "completely false." Rose added that an "independent female performer" had been stalking the Riddle family:
Riddle has returned to the ring and was featured in the main event of the WWE’s recent stadium show in Puerto Rico hosted by recording superstar Bad Bunny (who also wrestled a match on the card).
Of course not that long ago, in this same entertainment fighting ecosphere, Dana White was caught on video slapping his wife in public (an act Ari Emanuel remained curiously silent about), while Vince McMahon… was being Vince McMahon.
So you tell me if this 2005 video has any bearing on understanding the thinking and motives of powerful men who wield billions and do as they please without true accountability; meanwhile, “Bikini Girl” is left a ghost, a woman whose hopes or dreams could only be assumed by a man apparently too busy gaslighting and sucking her dry to bother remembering her name.
Tax Musk. Tax billionaires. Get a different result.
Okay, I’m through. See you in the comments.