CM Punk is Paying Homage to This Legendary Pro Wrestler in His New TV Series ‘Heels’

CM Punk is playing the role of Ricky Rabies on the show, Heels. He has been working on this character for a while. Now, he revealed the inspiration behind this character.

According to CM Punk, Ricky Rabies’ inspiration is late wrestler Tracy Smothers. He revealed Smothers was the first pro-wrestler he ever wrestled, and talked about his experience working with him.

“Ricky Rabies is Tracy Smothers. We lost Tracy a couple of years ago and he was a guy. He was the first name I ever wrestled. I wrestled Tracy Smothers in a barn in Southern Indiana in 1999 or 2000, something like that. And he just walked up to me and said ‘hey man. I’ve seen you work, you’re good. Listen, I can’t remember s**t so is okay if we just go out there and do it? I can’t memorize this and that. We can talk about it, but I’ll just forget it. So can we go out there?’ And I was terrified because at that stage of my career I would have to sit down and be like ‘you want to do this and then I’ll do this and then we’ll go do this?’”

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Tracy Smothers showed CM Punk how to be a pro-wrestler

Not only did he reveal how much Tracy Smothers inspired him, but also the incident, which helped him understand how to work as a pro-wrestler. It so happened that it was an act by Smothers that helped him understand how to be an entertaining pro-wrestler.

“So I went out there and Tracy knew what he was doing. And I remember at one time in the match he grabbed somebody’s nachos. And he had the nacho cheese in his hand. Now I’m in a barn in Southern Indiana, there’s no shower, there’s no nothing. I drive from Chicago all the way down there, five and a half, six hours, and then we get the car and we drive back. And we’re lucky if we get gas money.”

“He’s about to hit me with this and he goes ‘block it. Hit me with the cheese brother.’ I was like ‘f**k yeah!’ I learned how to work because of Tracy Smothers. I only wish he was here to see this ridiculous s**t, because I think he’d love it.” H/t Wrestling Inc

Currently, CM Punk works actively with AEW and his first opponent is Darby Allin at AEW All Out on September 5th, 2021.

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