Come on ... don't act like you wouldn't pay $59.99 for the PPV, either.
By: Jimbo X
@JimboX
Let's face it — unless a lighting rig or something like that falls into the middle of the Octagon mid-fight Saturday night, C.M. Punk is ‘bout to get his ass whupped AGAIN before a live, televised PPV audience.
And, I for one, couldn't be happier.
Even back in his much ballyhooed ROH days, I thought this Punk chap was severely overrated. Straight-edge gimmick aside, there really wasn't anything remarkable about his in-ring delivery, and his promos didn't even get halfway decent until like, what, 2009?
Furthermore, I've long considered his marquee matches — the ones against Cena, the ones against Brock, the ones against Jericho and Taker — nowhere near as good as they're cracked up to be. Sure, he's had a couple of great matches, but you can say the same thing about guys like Jean Pierre Lafitte and Bunkhouse Buck, too.
All in all, Punk might just be the single most overrated wrestler IN HISTORY, considering the overall quality of his oeuvre and his total impact on the pseudo-sport. This is a man who will forever be remembered for a couple of shooty promos about ice cream bars and bullying on Monday Night Raw, but beyond that? I wouldn't be surprised if The Repo Man's entry in the Big Book of 'Rasslin Lore is longer than Punk's, when we can objectively and impartially say everything has been said AND done.
Of course Punk, who is a lot closer to being 40 than 30 these days, isn't a UFC-caliber fighter. He's not a Bellator-caliber fighter, hell, he's probably not even a high-school wrestling-caliber fighter, for that matter. But the UFC is holding on to him because, as much as we may hate it, he is a draw, probably responsible for getting about 100,000 of the great unwashed to tune into a PPV spectacular they otherwise would have no interest in experiencing.
Yes, there's been pro wrestling into MMA crossover since the sport's inception. Ken Shamrock, Sakuraba, Brock Lesnar ... even Ludvig Borga had a match back in the Vale Tudo days, if you can believe it. But whereas all these men ALSO had experiences in real sports and real combat and real unstaged athletics contests, I'm pretty sure Punk's drubbing at the hands of Mickey Gall back in 2016 was the first "real" fight of Punk's life. I used to think nobody on the planet could eat punches worse than Lesnar, but I'll be damned if Punk took each fist to the face about as well as those aliens in Signs took a flash flood. Simply put, this is NOT a man cognitively or physically prepared to fight people professionally, which begs the question ... why does the UFC even keep him on, anyway?
Like I said earlier, there's no denying he's played a part in pumping up buyrates in the past. Whether or not his second foray into the cage will be as big as his UFC debut (which went about as well as it did for Daisy in Daisy's Destruction), financially, is just something we will have to wait and see. If the show does anything less than 300,000 buys, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say Punk will be cut quicker than a coupon for half off Rocky Road at Louie Anderson's house, and from there, it's only a matter of time until he's hanging out with Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks and thus, fulfilling the trifecta of soy prophecy we all knew was inevitable.
But let's say for a moment that the unthinkable happens — either Punk's appearance at UFC 225 drives PPV sales WAY higher than predicted or, and this one is REALLY unlikely, he looks halfway competitive in the bout against Mike Jackson (no relation) or, egads, even manages to WIN the fight.
To quote people on the Internet who are still waiting to get laid, "wut do?" if you're the UFC?
Well, I've mulled it over myself, and win or loss, I believe CM Punk deserves a third fight in the UFC, regardless of Saturday night's outcome.
And that fight should be against another "crossover" athlete with a 0-0 record in mixed martial arts.
That man's name is Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Mayweather has been teasing an appearance in the Octagon for quite some time. Of course, Floyd being Floyd (meaning, he's illiterate and probably beating up a woman right now), that's probably just a whole bunch of hot air and nothing more.
But again, let's take a trip to ImaginationWorld™ and just pretend that Mayweather's MMA aspirations are legit. If Mayweather was actually serious about competing in a UFC fight, is there really anyone on the active roster you could feasibly match him against BESIDES Punk?
Any middleweight or lightweight on the roster would thump Mayweather like a transfer truck running over a squirrel. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that, in a real UFC fight, ANY male fighter on the roster could best Floyd in an MMA bout, and that includes Cris Cyborg.
But Punk is the only man currently under contract with UFC who could give Mayweather at least a twinkle of a granule of a smidge of hope for a victory. Would Punk's rudimentary BJJ skills be enough to give him the edge, or would Mayweather's still dazzling counterpunching and dodging technique be enough to trap Punk standing and finish him with a well-timed blow?
It really could go either way, and that's why the prospect of a bout between the pro wrestler and the pro boxer is so appetizing. If CM Punk can beat Floyd Mayweather, it means that LITERALLY the worst fighter in the company is still tougher and more dangerous than the most accomplished boxer of the last 30 years. And if Mayweather wins, well, I suppose that proves once and for all that Punk does indeed suck out loud, and even better, it sets Floyd up for a "real" fight in the cage a little bit down the road.
It's hard to not whiff the dollar signs when you're fantasy booking stuff like this. Although it's VERY unlikely, can you imagine the mad amount of scratch a CM Punk vs. Floyd Mayweather UFC fight would generate? It might actually BE the highest grossing UFC card ever, and surely, even if it turns into an Ali/Inoka-like trainwreck, at least it's not another Tyron Woodley bout — which is good news for both MMA purists and casual observers alike.
Maybe that IS why the UFC is keeping Punk around — not to piss off Vince, but to have an ultimate trump card, so to speak, to bait Floyd Mayweather's brain-damaged ass into actually signing a one or two fight contract.
Yes, the idea sounds conspiratorial. Yes, it sounds pie-in-the sky crazy, if not completely antithetical to common sense. But you know what?
We said the exact same thing about the prospects of Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather actually getting things squared away for a boxing match, and look what happened.
Stranger things, folks, have happened than CM Punk and Floyd Mayweather going toe-to-toe in the Octagon. Just remember — I'm the one who predicted it way back when.
Let's face it — unless a lighting rig or something like that falls into the middle of the Octagon mid-fight Saturday night, C.M. Punk is ‘bout to get his ass whupped AGAIN before a live, televised PPV audience.
And, I for one, couldn't be happier.
Even back in his much ballyhooed ROH days, I thought this Punk chap was severely overrated. Straight-edge gimmick aside, there really wasn't anything remarkable about his in-ring delivery, and his promos didn't even get halfway decent until like, what, 2009?
Furthermore, I've long considered his marquee matches — the ones against Cena, the ones against Brock, the ones against Jericho and Taker — nowhere near as good as they're cracked up to be. Sure, he's had a couple of great matches, but you can say the same thing about guys like Jean Pierre Lafitte and Bunkhouse Buck, too.
All in all, Punk might just be the single most overrated wrestler IN HISTORY, considering the overall quality of his oeuvre and his total impact on the pseudo-sport. This is a man who will forever be remembered for a couple of shooty promos about ice cream bars and bullying on Monday Night Raw, but beyond that? I wouldn't be surprised if The Repo Man's entry in the Big Book of 'Rasslin Lore is longer than Punk's, when we can objectively and impartially say everything has been said AND done.
Of course Punk, who is a lot closer to being 40 than 30 these days, isn't a UFC-caliber fighter. He's not a Bellator-caliber fighter, hell, he's probably not even a high-school wrestling-caliber fighter, for that matter. But the UFC is holding on to him because, as much as we may hate it, he is a draw, probably responsible for getting about 100,000 of the great unwashed to tune into a PPV spectacular they otherwise would have no interest in experiencing.
Yes, there's been pro wrestling into MMA crossover since the sport's inception. Ken Shamrock, Sakuraba, Brock Lesnar ... even Ludvig Borga had a match back in the Vale Tudo days, if you can believe it. But whereas all these men ALSO had experiences in real sports and real combat and real unstaged athletics contests, I'm pretty sure Punk's drubbing at the hands of Mickey Gall back in 2016 was the first "real" fight of Punk's life. I used to think nobody on the planet could eat punches worse than Lesnar, but I'll be damned if Punk took each fist to the face about as well as those aliens in Signs took a flash flood. Simply put, this is NOT a man cognitively or physically prepared to fight people professionally, which begs the question ... why does the UFC even keep him on, anyway?
Like I said earlier, there's no denying he's played a part in pumping up buyrates in the past. Whether or not his second foray into the cage will be as big as his UFC debut (which went about as well as it did for Daisy in Daisy's Destruction), financially, is just something we will have to wait and see. If the show does anything less than 300,000 buys, I think it's a pretty safe bet to say Punk will be cut quicker than a coupon for half off Rocky Road at Louie Anderson's house, and from there, it's only a matter of time until he's hanging out with Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks and thus, fulfilling the trifecta of soy prophecy we all knew was inevitable.
But let's say for a moment that the unthinkable happens — either Punk's appearance at UFC 225 drives PPV sales WAY higher than predicted or, and this one is REALLY unlikely, he looks halfway competitive in the bout against Mike Jackson (no relation) or, egads, even manages to WIN the fight.
To quote people on the Internet who are still waiting to get laid, "wut do?" if you're the UFC?
Well, I've mulled it over myself, and win or loss, I believe CM Punk deserves a third fight in the UFC, regardless of Saturday night's outcome.
And that fight should be against another "crossover" athlete with a 0-0 record in mixed martial arts.
That man's name is Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
Mayweather has been teasing an appearance in the Octagon for quite some time. Of course, Floyd being Floyd (meaning, he's illiterate and probably beating up a woman right now), that's probably just a whole bunch of hot air and nothing more.
But again, let's take a trip to ImaginationWorld™ and just pretend that Mayweather's MMA aspirations are legit. If Mayweather was actually serious about competing in a UFC fight, is there really anyone on the active roster you could feasibly match him against BESIDES Punk?
Any middleweight or lightweight on the roster would thump Mayweather like a transfer truck running over a squirrel. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that, in a real UFC fight, ANY male fighter on the roster could best Floyd in an MMA bout, and that includes Cris Cyborg.
But Punk is the only man currently under contract with UFC who could give Mayweather at least a twinkle of a granule of a smidge of hope for a victory. Would Punk's rudimentary BJJ skills be enough to give him the edge, or would Mayweather's still dazzling counterpunching and dodging technique be enough to trap Punk standing and finish him with a well-timed blow?
It really could go either way, and that's why the prospect of a bout between the pro wrestler and the pro boxer is so appetizing. If CM Punk can beat Floyd Mayweather, it means that LITERALLY the worst fighter in the company is still tougher and more dangerous than the most accomplished boxer of the last 30 years. And if Mayweather wins, well, I suppose that proves once and for all that Punk does indeed suck out loud, and even better, it sets Floyd up for a "real" fight in the cage a little bit down the road.
It's hard to not whiff the dollar signs when you're fantasy booking stuff like this. Although it's VERY unlikely, can you imagine the mad amount of scratch a CM Punk vs. Floyd Mayweather UFC fight would generate? It might actually BE the highest grossing UFC card ever, and surely, even if it turns into an Ali/Inoka-like trainwreck, at least it's not another Tyron Woodley bout — which is good news for both MMA purists and casual observers alike.
Maybe that IS why the UFC is keeping Punk around — not to piss off Vince, but to have an ultimate trump card, so to speak, to bait Floyd Mayweather's brain-damaged ass into actually signing a one or two fight contract.
Yes, the idea sounds conspiratorial. Yes, it sounds pie-in-the sky crazy, if not completely antithetical to common sense. But you know what?
We said the exact same thing about the prospects of Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather actually getting things squared away for a boxing match, and look what happened.
Stranger things, folks, have happened than CM Punk and Floyd Mayweather going toe-to-toe in the Octagon. Just remember — I'm the one who predicted it way back when.
