Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) president Dana White has already assured in an interview with ESPN that CM Punk, the iconoclast former WWE Champion turned UFC hopeful, will be pitted against competitors who share the same level of mixed martial arts experience.
When Punk first enters the cage in 2015, however, he will bring far more to the Octagon than just that.
Round One
The Chicago native began his fighting career as a backyard wrestler, putting on popular shows with his brother and teenage friends. He recounted in the WWE Home Video documentary, CM Punk: Best in the World, how he alienated those friends when he decided to take the craft seriously and train professionally.
For the next 15 years, Punk proved to be the consummate professional, gaining a loyal following who appreciated his work ethic and characterizations in a legacy of matches throughout Ring of Honor and into WWE.
It was not until the seminal “pipe bomb promo” in June 2011—where WWE producers gave Punk, whose contract was soon to expire, a live mic on a live broadcast and told him to air his grievances—that Punk finally skyrocketed from a reliable, entertaining WWE Superstar and into the rare stardom enjoyed by the likes of Gorgeous George, his protege Muhammad Ali or more recent standouts such as Rowdy Roddy Piper, all whose talents and appeal transcended the confines of a ring.
Round Two
Punk quietly walked away from WWE and a rabid fanbase in January 2014. When he finally decided to explain why in November 2014 on the Art of Wrestling podcast of his friend and fellow professional wrestler Colt Cabana, it was a “break the Internet” moment that forced Cabana to release the interview on multiple platforms so the numerous listeners could access the audio without it crashing. Punk’s fanbase was alive and well, it seemed, and fans even continue to chant his name during WWE events, despite the fact all parties know he will not be returning to perform.
Punk capitalized on the buzz with a promised second interview on Cabana’s show, where he fielded questions from fans, and then again, weeks later, officially announcing via UFC’s social media that he had signed with the promotion to fight in 2015.
Round Three
As Punk transitions from four posts to eight, will his considerable professional wrestling experience be a help or a hindrance?
Heavyweights Brock Lesnar, Ken Shamrock, Bobby Lashley and Dave Bautista (Batista) have all successfully transitioned between the two sports. Though Punk will be the first two-sport athlete in the middleweight class, precedent is on his side.
Even though Punk is arriving in the Octagon as an MMA novice, he brings three key advantages over his similarly experienced opponents that could, at least in the early stage of his UFC career, give him a decided advantage:
Cardio
Professional wrestlers have the most grueling schedule in all of sports and entertainment. They are on the road most of the year in an endless tour with no offseason, picking up their exercise regimens when they can in whatever local or hotel gym is available. To survive in this environment, cardio is key.
Hall of Famer Bret Hart briefly detailed the grind in his autobiography, Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling:
I was dog tired. I’d been working hard to build up my cardio, and the three matches I’d wrestled the night before could only help, as long as I didn’t get too beat up. Early that morning, I’d worked out at a local gym and was amazed to see Ric Flair blazing a trail on the StairMaster next to me, despite being hungover from his usual night of hard drinking. Flair was easily one of the fittest wrestlers I have ever seen. As he sweated out his poisons, he didn’t show any sign of slowing down.
Punk has spent his entire adult life in this conditioning, ready to work a 10-minute match on television one night, then a 25-minute at a house show the next, then a 40-minute pay-per-view match to end the week before being ready for TV again the next night.
Even if Punk displays ring rust in his first UFC match, three-minute rounds with weeks upon weeks solely dedicated to focus on a single match and training is a luxury Punk’s body is not accustomed to, which means he is going to enter the cage rested, healed and ready for a fight.
Professional Poise
Unlike his opponents, Punk has big-match experience that many of the top UFC fighters cannot even claim. He has performed multiple times in front of crowds 70,000 fans deep, and millions more watching on television worldwide, at his industry’s premiere event, WrestleMania. Part of his training, and part of the skill set he has developed, is to know when to engage an audience and when and how to tune them out.
Cutting promos and talking with the media are second nature to this seasoned performer, and his ego has been in the public spotlight long enough to know how to handle the pitfalls of both media scrutiny and praise.
Whatever butterflies or anxiety Punk might feel before his first UFC match, the oppressive media spotlight is just another day at the office.
Candor
As reported by ESPN, Punk expressed his excitement in pursuing his UFC dream and concluded by saying, “I’m either here to win or get my ass kicked.”
In the Punk documentary WWE produced and distributed, Punk acknowledge ripping up scripts WWE writers would hand him because they were not up to the professional standards he was trying to achieve. Needless to say, this is not a man who is shy about sharing his opinions.
If Punk is willing to tell reporters, “I’m either here to win or get my ass kicked,” one can only imagine the conversations he is having with his trainers. These are not the words of a braggadocio screaming he will tear down the temple walls.
Punk’s wrestling persona boasted he was the best in the world, but he had spent 12 years earning the right to say it. His name appears multiple times on WWE best matches of the year DVDs for a reason.
UFC Punk is at year zero, but the dedication and the professional pride and drive remain intact. He will assess his strengths and weaknesses to the uncompromising standard he holds himself to, and he will formulate his game plan accordingly.
Ring the Bell
Punk has spent the past 15 years “getting his ass kicked” by the grueling gauntlet of the professional wrestling circuit, becoming a success doing what he loved and leaving on his own terms.
UFC is a different animal than WWE, but Punk is the same animal who has found a new love. The physical rigors that conditioned him for a life in the ring only bolster what he needs to bring to the Octagon, and the mental toughness that carried him through unfathomable highs and lows will fortify the rest.
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