4 CM Punk references that continued on WWE television after he left

#1 The GTS

After initially using the Anaconda Vice submission as his finisher in ECW, CM Punk began to use the GTS (Go To Sleep) as his go-to move to defeat opponents in WWE.

Up until Punk’s departure in January 2014, nobody else in WWE had used the move. That was, of course, until Kenta Kobayashi – the man who invented the GTS – signed with WWE later in the year and became known as Hideo Itami.

Unlike when AJ Lee appeared on WWE programming, there were no chants of “CM Punk! CM Punk!” when Itami hit his signature move, mostly because the NXT audience was smart enough to know that it was the Japanese star, not Punk, who came up with it in the first place.

Itami used the GTS during his first three years in NXT/WWE but he was told to find a new finisher in December 2017 after he broke The Brian Kendrick’s nose and orbital bone while executing the move during a match on Raw.