Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir recently discussed his opinion on CM Punk fighting inside the Octagon.
And let’s just say that Mir isn’t really digging it.
“I’m gonna be honest, it pisses me off. I don’t like it. I’m trying to be impartial and not be a dick but the more we talk about this the more I’m getting angry at the situation because it’s (expletive),” Mir said on his podcast, Phone Booth Fighting (thanks to MMA Fighting for transcribing). “This is not a legitimate fight. This is not a legitimate UFC fight. We have these kind of fights in boxing, they have those celebrity matchups where it’s a name guy that shouldn’t be in there getting in there with somebody that has a novelty to it and people might turn it on for the novelty act behind it but you wouldn’t have it on the undercard of a (Floyd) Mayweather fight. They wouldn’t put those two together and the fact that we are putting that on there doesn’t sit well with me.
“We want to be in New York and we want to be legitimate and we want to be even with boxing and have that kind of credibility, and boxing wouldn’t do this. I mean, they do do this but they don’t put it on the same card with their championship fights.”
Mir knows something about welcoming former pro wrestlers to the Octagon, as he fought Brock Lesnar in Lesnar’s second-ever MMA bout and first with the UFC. Mir won that contest with a kneebar submission, though he was defeated in the rematch.
Punk faces Mickey Gall Saturday night at UFC 203. The former WWE champion will be competing in MMA for the very first time.