FORMER WWE CHAMPION CM Punk has signed with the UFC.
Punk — whose real name is Phil Brooks — will follow in the footsteps of Brock Lesnar and Dave Bautista and step into the Octagon in 2015.
“I have a background in kempo and I’ve done Brazilian jiu-jitsu off and on for a very, very long time,” the 36-year-old told Joe Rogan on Saturday night.
The idea of being able to step into the Octagon and find out what’s inside myself and test myself is an opportunity that I was not able to deny myself.
“I don’t think I would have been able to live with myself if I did not give this a shot.”
Punk is expected to fight in the middleweight division, UFC president Dana White told reporters.
If you’re not familiar with Punk’s WWE work, he’s one of the eight lads involved in this:
I hope he does well.
He won’t. At least not if they put him with a high level guy. He has no background in competitive fighting and has suffered numerous injuries from pro-wrestling. At 37 he’s no spring chicken. This is about publicity for the UFC.
Never been too much of a Wrestling fan, but I watched the CM Punk documentary and it’s pretty inspirational, his strength of character is incredible and he got screwed big time by WWE, they fired him on his wedding day and never gave him the chances he wanted despite offering them to others sometimes days later. He explained the reasons he left on a podcast last week, I haven’t seen the whole thing but I’ve read articles on it and it seems completely unfair. Glad he’s been given a break and a fresh start
Heard his podcast on why he left. They treated him like shit, wouldn’t give him doctors and then fired him on his wedding day after he walked. Hope he does well, but he said he had clause stopping him from going ufc?
I would say Vince McMahon let that one slide, considering he could have sued them for all of the medical blunders they preferred to get a clean break from all the bad publicity he was giving them
Just looked it up there, he did sue them after they wouldn’t pay him royalties and got a big settlement. The clause they had was also illegal because he was an independent contractor, which allows him to do what he wants. Vincent tried everything he could do not to give him a cent.
Surely he’s going to get his head kicked in?
Doubt it. Regardless of its stature as a bit of a joke, they are great athletes…
It hardly matters if he’s great athlete. The guy has never fought professionally in his entire life and is now fighting in the world’s premier MMA organisation? This stinks of a Dana White attempt to get the UFC some mainstream attention after a terrible year for PPV buys.
He’ll win if they stick him against an undersized can whose primary job is janitorial work.
Brock lesnar goes between both fairly easy so why can’t he?
Brock Lesnar was a freak athlete who was a champion collegiate wrestler who was beaten only twice in his entire amateurr wrestling career. He’s an anomaly. And anyway it was quite clear, he was deeply uncomfortable with the striking aspect of the game. He got submittted once and koed twice out of only 7 UFC fights.
Ok, Ken shamrock then. There has been quite a few and it seems pretty easy for them,that’s my point.
Ken Shamrock was a professional fighter in Japan with a background in catch wrestling( similar to Brazilian JJ) before he ever went near the WWE. Bad example.
Ya and punk just said he has a history in brazilian jiu-jitsu so whats your point?
kurt angle has an olympic gold medal for free style wrestling.. Believe or but they do actually have to have some sort of wrestling techniques to be in wwe.
Sigh. Right so we’ll just have to see what happens,never know,could be decent or rubbish, time will tell.
Couldn’t put up the pipe bomb promo or the match with Cena in Chicago. You put up that? He’s one of these 8 and he’s not in the picture?
WWE fooked up