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Colt Cabana (real name Scott Colton, born May 6, 1980) is a professional wrestler and comedian who is perhaps best known for his time in Ring of Honor. He has also had noteworthy runs in IWA Mid-South and CHIKARA, and he even had a brief run in WWE as Scotty Goldman after years in their then-developmental company, Ohio Valley Wrestling (with a few televised matches even before). He was also a part of Wrestling Society X as the masked Matt Classic, supposedly a wrestler from the 1950s who used old-school moves such as the airplane spin. In addition to all of this, he frequently wrestles all over the world.

Outside wrestling, Colt has taken up stand-up and improvisational comedy. Every Monday he and comedian Marty DeRosa star in a show called Creative Has Nothing for You, about a wrestler who has difficulties dealing with the writer of a wrestling promotion. Every Thursday he releases a podcast called The Art of Wrestling, in which he interviews anyone he knows within the industry from independent wrestlers or active TNA/WWE superstars. He and Marty DeRosa also do MST3K-style commentary on Highspots' $5 Wrestling series.

In 2020, Colt signed with All Elite Wrestling after making a surprise appearance at the Revolution PPV.


Tropes associated with Colt Cabana's pro wrestling career (plus his podcast) include:

  • Acrofatic: Colt is not fat, but he is often described and self-described as "barrel-chested" and one of the bigger non-giant wrestlers in the indy's where most wrestlers are less than two hundred pounds. Doesn't stop Colt from using an Asai Moonsault as a fairly regular move. On the other hand, a blinded Delirious was eventually able to tell Cabana and Todd Sinclair apart by the latter being much fatter.
  • Alliterative Name: His usual one anyway, not so much the rest.
  • Ass Kicks You: One of his moves is the "Flying Asshole". The name was bowdlerized for the family-friendly CHIKARA to the "Flying Apple".
  • Arch-Enemy: Adam Pearce, with whom he had a bitter rivalry over the NWA World Heavyweight Title and instigated a Best of Seven series, aptly known as "Seven Levels of Hate".
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: Big guy to CM Punk's little guy. While Punk isn't what someone would call "little," he is considerably less bulky than Cabana.
  • Cavalry Betrayal: At ROH So Cal Showdown, Cabana ran out to stop Scotty 2 Hotty from giving the worm to referee Johny Fairplay, only to give Fairplay the worm himself and follow it up with a stink face.
  • Cardiovascular Love: Parodied. He has a T-shirt that has a Jewish Star in between the words "I" and "Colt." CM Punk has even been photographed wearing it.
  • Catchphrase: On the Art of Wrestling podcast, he starts each episode with the same paragraph, but the two most beloved lines are "Live from the studio... apartment!" and "It's a professional wrestling podcast, a life podcast!"
  • Celebrity Endorsement: Gave/gives out free trials of Hulu Plus.
  • Cheap Pop: At Absolute Intense Wrestling's Hell On Earth XII, which was of course held in Ohio, Cabana was greeted with chants of "Fuck The Cubs!" Cabana attempted to soothe the audience by telling the ring announcer Cleveland was his "winter home".
  • Combat Commentator: For Family Wrestling Entertainment.
  • Combination Attack
    • A double hamstring stretch with an unwilling WWL referee who though Colt Cabana was going to stomp on Steve Corino's nuts and tried to stop him. In his defense, Cabana had resorted to similar tactics in the promotion before.
    • One of Big In USA's is to trip each other while they're running so they will fall on top of the opposition.
  • Comedic Spanking: To the referee during his match against El Hijo del Fishman while wrestling in Mexico for the WWL.
  • Couch Gag: In the opening paragraph for the Art of Wrestling when introducing himself he says different things ("I'm a Chicago native!" "I'm a tax payer!""I'm a small business owner!") before saying "but more importantly, I'm a professional wrestler!" He'll often use the same descriptions multiple times but never the same way.
  • Defeating the Undefeatable: While he lost the International Wrestling Cartel's Super Indy Title belt to AJ Styles, Cabana did successfully defend it against Styles several times before it happened, AJ Styles being considered the second most difficult man in IWC to defeat after Abyss.
  • Dirty Cop: As Officer Colt Cabana in JCW.
  • Dirty Coward
    • When Lucy was injured by a mystery assailant, Cabana and Ace Steel were initially too afraid to return to Ring Of Honor.
    • He hid under the table from the Carnage Crew at ROH Generation Next.
  • Enemy Mine: Was willing to work alongside the World Champion he was gunning for, Jay Lethal, against Adam Cole after Cole joined with Bullet Club in exchange for making sure Cabana did not become champion.
  • Evil Versus Evil: He held nothing back when The Second City Saints were against The Prophecy, promising Punk he'd do anything to win.
  • Finishing Move: Double Underhook Canadian Backbreaker he calls Colt 45 and an Inverted Boston Crab he calls Chicago Crab. Matt Classic liked the Von Erich Claw.
  • Flaw Exploitation: He ended his self imposed five year exile from Ring Of Honor because he was tired of being seen as CM Punk's friend and wanted the World Title Punk had had. When Jay Lethal said there were no challengers left in ROH to face him, however, Cabana neglected to get the match he got by insulting Lethal's pride turned into a title match in order to show the rest of the roster how to beat the world champion. Kevin Kelly and Mr Wrestling III noted Truth Martini would not have allowed any match to take place had he not been hospitalized by Donovan Dijak just before Cabana's return, though.
  • Gorgeous George: Not his gimmick, but he used many techniques associated when wrestling Steve Corino in the World Wrestling League.
  • Groin Attack
    • Accidentally low blowed Nigel McGuinness at ROH Nowhere To Run. When he realized what he did, he gave McGuiness some time to recover but Nigel didn't appreciate it and purposefully gave Colt a low blow after the ref was knocked over.
    • Colt was beaten down for much of the battle royal to determine the first World Wrestling League's first Heavyweight Champion by the seven foot Dementus until he kicked Dementus below the belt.
  • Heel Realization: He got booed at ROH Fifth Year Festival Finale when he tried to remove Delirious's mask, which made him stop and apologize to the fans.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: He used to be this with CM Punk. The two met at wrestling school and wrestled throughout the indies together, being two-time ROH World Tag Team Champions together, and Punk even wrestled his last match in ROH against Cabana — echoing retirement matches where a close friend of the performer would wrestle their last match with them. Unfortunately, in real life they are no longer friends.note 
  • How Did That Get in There? He was wrestling in Ring of Honor both as Matt Classic and as Colt Cabana and someone found the Classic mask in his bag.
  • Human Popsicle: Matt Classic's gimmick is that he was recently revived from the 50s who uses hilariously outdated wrestling maneuvers and survives on a diet of "raw eggs, mayonnaise sandwiches and cigarettes".
  • Hypocritical Humor: When Konnan and former WWE writer Court Bauer invited Colt on their own podcast, Colt kept calling Konnan "Conan" throughout the show before jokingly calling out Konnan for always calling Court Bauer "Kurt".
  • "I Am" Song: "Boom Boom" is more a "he is" song, but otherwise fits.
  • I Have Many Names: Mostly wrestles as Colt Cabana and Matt Classic, but has also wrestled on WWE's Heat and Velocity B Shows as Chris Guy (real name of trainer Ace Steel, who worked as Scott Colton on Raw), Scotty Goldman (on Smackdown) and as Officer Colt Cabana (for the Insane Clown Posse's JCW promotion.)
  • Informed Judaism: Colt is Jewish, and his wrestling gimmick largely draws from it, but in all his interviews he's made himself out to be either non-practicing or extremely reformed about it.
  • Jerk Jock: One whom "The Lovely" Lacey was smitten with, which he used to rub in the face of Jimmy Jacobs. Later Cabana would admit he was only using Lacey for sex and told Jacobs to abandon her because she clearly did not care about his much more genuine feelings. And that was the nicest thing Cabana did in this angle, which says something about the ROHbots, who cheered Cabana on the whole way.
  • Jobber Entrance: If you saw him on WWE television, his entrance would not be the reason you remembered. Well, he did have a televised entrance with music when he went out to face The Brian Kendrick but it wasn't a common thing.
  • Masked Luchador: Matt Classic didn't wrestle a style immediately identifiable as technico or rudo, but his mask was of the style worn by countless luchadors.
  • Name of Power: Baby swing? Billy Goat's Curse!
  • Odd Couple: CM Punk hated everyone in ROH, it even seemed like he might hate Cabana at times, or at least Colt's eternally cheerful party nature.
  • One-Steve Limit: Even if WWE didn't have its habit of renaming people so it could trademark them (it did let CM Punk stay CM Punk, though it also only kept Punk because of Paul Heyman) they probably would not have been able to reconcile him with Carlito's Cabana.
  • Perky Female Minion: Lucy and Tracy Brooks in The Second City Saints, Daizee Haze outside of it.
  • Power Stable
    • Besides the Second City Saints, he was in CM Punk's New Dawn with Samoa Joe, Azriel and David Prazak in Full Impact Pro
    • (as Matt Classic): The Throwbacks with Dasher Hatfield, Mr. Touchdown, and Sugar Dunkerton
    • In AEW he's a member of The Dark Order
  • Power Trio:Old School Express with Jock Samson and Marion Fontaine
  • Punny Name: "Matt Classic"
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to CM Punk's Red Oni. CM Punk hated everyone in ROH, while Colt had an eternally cheerful nature. Punk even seemed like he might hate Cabana at times, or at least his aforementioned nature.
  • Ring Oldies: Parodied with Matt Classic.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Infamously led an exodus out of the NWA with Adam Pearce in one of the few cases that did not have anything to do with someone finding national success.
  • Shout-Out: As mentioned above, he and his trainer Ace Steel wrestled on WWE television using each other's real names.
  • Signature Move:
    • Besides the flying asshole, a twisting superplex (or Tornado Plex), Bearhug into Cradle DDT (Cabanarama) and an air raid crash onto his knee.
    • Matt Classic's were the airplane spin, abdominal stretch airplane spin, drop suplex and heart punch
  • Signing-Off Catchphrase: On Art of Wrestling "For Colt Cabana, I'm Colt Cabana! Thanksssssssssss!"
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: The Wise Guy to Punk's Straight Man, as indicated in Punk's farewell match in ROH.
  • So Last Season: He's tried to win matches with an alligator clutch. It almost never works, not even when he introduced a jumping variation.
  • Tag Team:
    • The Gold Bond Mafia, w/CM Punk and Chris Hero. He and Chris Hero are known as "Big In U.S.A." while teaming in Pro Wrestling NOAH.
    • Team SHAG with Darren Burridge
  • Teach Him Anger: He tried to get El Generico to get angry with Kevin Steen and Steve Corino
  • The Cavalry: For Samoa Joe in Northern Championship Wrestling when Kevin Steen interrupted a match between Joe and Franky The Mobster and the two teamed up on him.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Covered his crotch with his hands after realizing El Hijo del Fishman had him in position for Shattered Dreams.
  • Tournament Arc
    • He won the tournament to become International Wrestling Cartel's new World Heavyweight Champion after CM Punk had to drop the belt. He's also won their second Super Indy Tournament, beating Matt Stryker in the finals.
    • He won New Horizon Pro Wrestling's Global Conflict 2010 World Shield, beating Balls Mahoney in the finals
  • Three Month Rule: He was perfectly willing to team up with Homicide against Brent Albright and Adam Pearce in ROH, despite the latter two merely being assholes while Homicide tried to kill Colt Cabana multiple times in ROH prior.
  • Warts and All: The basis of his feud with Adam Pearce. Pearce was a hero of his before Colt Cabana became a pro wrestler, and as a wrestler, Cabana continued to admire Pearce's skill and work ethic. He had come to learn that Adam Pearce was also a real asshole, though.
  • We Used to Be Friends: With CM Punk in real life after the lawsuit between both and the former WWE doctor Chris Amann, which Punk won.
  • When Elders Attack: At AIW's Hell On Earth XII, he had to be saved from this by the grandmother of his opponent, Matt Cross.
  • You Can Leave Your Hat On: Early in their pro wrestling careers, around 2001, he and CM Punk did a lap dance for a raffle winner.

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