Back in October 2021 on AEW Dynamite, CM Punk defeated Bobby Fish after hitting the GTS. However, the finish created confusion among fans, as Fish kicked out just a split second after the referee counted three.
Bobby Fish explained the finish on his YouTube channel and took a jab at CM Punk’s MMA career in the process. Here’s what the former NXT Tag Team Champion said:
“I think, dare I say, our chemistry wasn’t bad. I remembered him from my days coming up, that when he went out and just wrestled, he was actually a decent wrestler. A pretty marginal athlete, I think he was very awkward, but as just a pro-wrestler, I didn’t think he was bad.
Where I thought he dropped the ball quite a bit was when he attempted to do more of a martial arts based thing, which, him coming back to pro-wrestling after the years of being away, I was actually a little surprised that that’s what he was coming back with. Because when he fought in the UFC, I think he represented our sport pretty poorly. I don’t think the man’s a very accomplished martial artist, and that just is what it is.
In our match, I was definitely – being a martial artist myself – I definitely was including some things, and it did appear to me that he was gonna do some of the same things, which… sure. Let’s do it.
Like I said, I think the match itself, our chemistry, wasn’t bad. What everybody’s interested in, what everybody wants to talk about, is the ending of this match. When the match ended, I was putting Phil over. In our industry, that’s doing the job, that’s doing the honors – you get paid to win or lose. So you go out and you do your job, or you do the job.
I was set to do that that evening, and planned on doing it. In the moment of the pin, he squeezed my arm or my leg, to be honest it’s all this time ago, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it’s what we call in the industry – the office or the iggy. And you generally do it to get someone’s attention.
So now, try to picture this, follow me on this – when you do an Irish whip, so that’s when somebody gets whipped to the ropes and they come back, right? So picture this, y’all are wrestling fans so I know you can do this. Picture, you’re both grabbing each other by the forearm. So it doesn’t need to be spoken, from there, if I give you a little squeeze, that’s what’s affectionately known as the office or the iggy. All that means is I’m telling you to reverse me.
So this has then multiplied over many iterations to mean quite a few things in this industry. I know sometimes, you’ll have a good match with somebody and on the pin you give them the iggy to let them know, ‘Hey, I appreciated that. Thank you.’ There’s different kinds of iggies, as crazy as that sounds.
But the iggy that I got in that moment was as if he was trying to get my attention. I don’t know what it was or why it was, but in that split second, I had an opportunity to, for lack of a better term, sh*t or get off the pot. So it was like… why is he trying to get my attention? Do I let it pass, or do I do something to change the outcome of what’s happening and acquiesce to, ‘Okay, what are you trying to get out of me?’
There was not a lot of time to think about this, so it was like, do or don’t do. And I did. And what I did was kick out – knowing, okay, if this wasn’t what the intention was, pick me up and hit your move again, or whatever you wanna do, I don’t know.
It was an instance where I did not have a lot of time to think, so I kicked out. I know after the fact a lot of people have said I was going into business for myself, etc etc. I can confirm for you that that certainly has nothing to do with what my mindset was at that time.”
