Amazing Red sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Orlando, Florida to discuss being inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame and why he didn’t expect it, returning to TNA after 15 years to compete in an Ultimate X match, being one of the most influential wrestlers of the past 20 years, how he invented the Code Red, having a dark match with CM Punk in WWE in 2005, why he started House Of Glory, breaking his leg while doing mocap for a WWE videogame, if going to WWE or AEW may still be possible, and more!

Let me be one of the first to congratulate you on becoming a TNA Hall of Famer.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

You looked legitimately surprised.

“Yeah, I didn’t know what was happening. All I was told by Frankie was, ‘Stay here. There’s gonna be a shot between both of you.’ That’s all I kept hearing. Then before the last part of the match was happening, Frankie said, ‘Stay close. Stay close.’ As soon as people were powdering, he grabs the mic. As soon as he grabbed the mic, I instantly knew something was happening. Something’s up.”

What do you think it was?

“I thought he’s gonna cut a promo on me. So the last couple of matches I’ve had were dream match-type kind of things, and a lot of the guys would take it upon themselves to grab the mic and big me up and put me over and very grateful of it, and I thought this was one of those things that he was gonna do. But I’m thinking this is not an indie, this is TNA. You can’t really do that here. Then when he started talking he said, ‘Pay attention to the monitor in the back.’ Oh man they got me. They reached out a couple of times before about this situation about Hall of Fame, and I just kind of, I’m good, I’m good. Thank you. I’m good.”

Why’d you say no?

“To tell you the truth, man. I’m not that kind of a guy. I just feel like I’ve done one thing in my life, wrestled, and I think I’m good with doing that. And I think when people come up to me and say all these great stories, it just kind of like puts me in a box. I’m like, I’m just doing my own thing in my own lane, and I’m very appreciative I helped you out and stuff like that. But I think Hall of Fame is such a big [thing]. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to accept it.”

Also because Hall of Fame feels very final, and you’re still doing this. You’re still active:

“Yeah, that’s actually a good way of thinking about it for sure. A lot of times, I don’t feel like I’m old. I know I’m older. I don’t feel like I’m Hall of Fame bound yet. It’s kind of the same thing you’re saying, because a lot of times I did feel like I called it quits, and then I came right back to wrestling. So I think from here on out, I’m never gonna retire. I’m just gonna let it happen. Let it just happen. Let’s see what happens.”

John Cena does a Code Red.

“It’s John Cena’s move. Ain’t no way I’m taking that from John Cena. I got to ask him for permission.”

But how crazy is that? You invented this move that John Cena does.

“Again, man, no words. I have no idea. It was a lot of people doing it where I don’t know if it was the move looks cool, or if they kind of took a liking to how I did it, or they just wanted to make it their own, which is all cool. But the amount of people, even Sting- Sting did a Code Red. Isn’t that crazy? But what wowed me the most was the John Cena thing because my phone was blowing up. John Cena just did Code Red! I’m like, that’s kind of cool. But it’s kind of cool to see the things that you come up with that sound and look impossible be a thing, and even S.A.T. [Spanish Announce team], it’s called Spanish Fly. Every time someone does that move, Spanish Fly, and I think that’s also cool for them that they get like recognition by that alone.”

How did you invent the Code Red?

“So the Code Red was my younger brother. I had this on social media, you can check it out. I was literally 16 years old. I used to pick him up for a power bomb, and he always rolled behind me like a sunset flip, and I would always jump into it; it just felt like a power bomb. So I would call it the baby power bomb. In order for my little brother to feel cool, he’s gonna power bomb me, but I would beat the crap out of him. I would beat the crap out of him. Did all my moves on him. My mother hated it because we ruined all our mattresses. I have this all on VHS, by the way, which I’m gonna plan on releasing on YouTube soon. He would power bomb me, and I kept seeing that. So I was thinking, you know what? What if this is a wrestling move? You just go for a power bomb, roll back, pull him. It worked. Then I saw Tajiri come out of a sunset flip, like in a bridge kind of fashion, and I was like, let me see if this works.”

You had a dark match in WWE with CM Punk in 2005. What do you remember from getting the call for that match, and what do you remember about the match itself?

“I don’t remember. One of the things about me doing stuff like this is that my memory has been jacked, and yes, I can jot it down to pro wrestling and getting concussed and knocked, but I don’t remember how it started. But I know it was through friends looking out for me. I’ve never wrestled CM Punk at this point. It was supposed to be a squash match. It was supposed to be me versus Matt Morgan, maybe. I was supposed to lose in like two seconds.

I was like, that sounds cool. I was still ready for it, and I think it was Sgt Slaughter. Somebody called me by my government name and said, ‘Come here.’ I came over there, and one of the referees said, ‘Hey, Red’s got something else coming up. So Red’s gonna be pre-show, and you’re gonna have a dark match, and you guys do this.’ So they gave Matt somebody else, a different kind of wrestler. So then my cousins were there, and Jimmy Wang was there, and they were like, ‘Yo, when they give you dark matches, that means they’re looking at you to get signed.’ So I was like, all right, cool, cool. I’m nervous. I see CM Punk. I’ve known him from ROH, but we never chatted as much. He was very cool with me. We came up with cool ideas. Ricky Steamboat was the agent. Can I be transparent? This is how things went in my eyes, right? Ricky Steamboat wanted CM Punk to get signed. He needed CM Punk to get signed, obviously, right? So, right before this match, what I was hearing is that CM Punk, this was his last-ditch effort to be signed. I’ve heard he just wrestled with Val Venis and it was not good, and he was blown up. Or CM Punk told people he was sick, and they were like, Red, this is his last effort. So that’s added more pressure to me.

So then we go to the agent, and Steamboat was just giving him everything, ‘CM Punk will do this, this, and this.’ Then he asked me to do a heel thing. He said, ‘You ever wrestled heel before?’ I was like, yeah. Because at this point, I’m thinking he’s telling me to be a heel so CM Punk could be a face. I’m like yes, I wrestled heel before, but look at me and look at him. It’s not gonna work. He walks away. CM Punk respectfully tells me, ‘Listen, we’ll do whatever you gotta do.’ Being very transparent here, the moves that I wanted to do, Code Red, my flatliner, my standing shooting star. I wanted to get that out in the world that I made this up at that point, because you’re on WWE. Once this happens in WWE, it is officially yours. Every time I mentioned something to him, I don’t know if it was him, but every time I mentioned something to him, it came back and got vetoed. ‘You can’t do a shooting star. Kidman does it, and Paul London said Kidman’s gonna get hot.’ ‘You can’t do Code Red because Rey does it, and he’s gonna get hot. You got this move, you can’t do that move.’

So Jimmy Wang is my boy. He’s like my brother, and he’s not gonna lie to me. So he’s coming up and he’s like, ‘They’re kiboshing all your stuff, bro, purposely.’ It felt like no one wanted me with a job here. I’m like, okay, that sucks. I wrestled with CM Punk at the time the match didn’t feel good at all. We just kept messing up and botching and going to different things. We go to the back. CM Punk gets taken by Johnny Ace. I’m there like waiting for CM Punk just to say thank you. I know the match wasn’t that good, and Steamboat’s just following him, saying, ‘Give him one more chance. Give him one more chance.’ Damn, I’ll get some receipt for this. Johnny Ace comes out of the room with CM Punk. He was in the room. He comes out of the room. He goes, ‘Hey, have you ever wrestled in a big ring before?’ I said, Yeah. He said, ‘Where?’ I said, All Japan. When I said All Japan, that blew his mind because that’s where he came from. It was all Japan. He was touring there. He was like, ‘You were in All Japan?’ I was like yeah, I was in All Japan. ‘How long?’ I said like three months. He was like, ‘Well, you look blown up, so we’ll give you a call.’ I did the unprofessional thing of saying, ‘I look blown up?’ Because I was just wondering. I know what he means because when we did mess up, we didn’t go to the different positions right away. We kind of had this like deer-in-the-headlights moment, so I guess he took that as you look blown up. He told me that, I said, ‘Anything else I have to work on?’ He said, ‘Yeah, get bigger.’ He walks away. I see CM Punk come out the door. Walks away. What’s going on? Jimmy Wang comes up to me, and he goes, ‘Bro, you could tell wholeheartedly that was all him. You did all of your stuff. You sold well, blah blah. Everyone loved you in the back, and it sucks.’ That’s how it has to be.

Fast forward to when I got my second chance at the WWE. I was supposed to get squashed by Ryback. He was supposed to beat up three jobbers. I don’t remember the year. I know that it was a lot of controversy that I showed up at No Way Out. It was like ‘Amazing Red and somebody pulled up to No Way Out.’ It was like he was having a dark match, and I was just there because they asked me to pull up. I was one of the jobbers supposed to get beat up by Ryback, get thrown through a table. Ryback said, ‘How much you weigh?’ I was like, why? He said, ‘Because I’m gonna throw you through the table.’ That’s the first time I ever met him. I’m like, okay, I’m getting thrown through the table. Somebody shouts out, ‘Red’s not doing that. Red has something,’ and I got taken away from that. I didn’t do that either. From that moment, I was thinking I wanted to tell CM Punk something, like talk to him, and CM Punk shows up. I’m at the doctor, and I felt someone hugging me from behind, ‘Red! What’s up, man? What’s up?’ And I turn around; it’s him, and I don’t know what belt he had on, but he had on a belt. It was probably the world title or like one of the biggest belts. And I’m like, you know what? I’m not gonna tell him anything, because it’s just so much at this point; it’s water under the bridge. But I was very bitter about that day, just because I feel like it was my opportunity also to be signed, and I didn’t get that. But I was bitter about it, where I felt like he ruined it for me. But I’m grown now to understand he had a job too. This was his thing, no hard feelings. That’s why a lot of my guys who find out the story, they’re like, ‘Oh, CM Punk, you probably hate him.’ I said, ‘No, no, I don’t hate him. I love that dude, honestly.’”