Dana White: CM Punk’s next fight should probably not be in the UFC

Former WWE superstar Phil ‘CM Punk’ Brooks took one of the oddest routes in sports history on Saturday night. All athletes follow the same fundamental path:
1. Learn a sport.
2. Compete in that sport.
3. If you develop into an elite competitor, turn professional.

Punk took a unique Fire-Ready-Aim approach. First, he signed with the UFC. Then he began to learn mixed martial arts, without a competitive background in any combat sport. His Roufusport BJJ Instructor estimated he had rolled for about two weeks with Rener and Ryron Gracie. And Punk got a green belt in Kenpo karate as a child. That was it.

The problem, of course, is that if you enter Wimbledon without ever competing in Tennis before, you get 40 to love a few times. In MMA, it’s your ass. Mickey Gall left CM Punk with a bloody cauliflower ear, and a facial expression like his house had just washed away in a flood.

And Gall is not even a UFC fighter. He was brought in with just one pro fight because he called out the pro wrestler at a regional event where UFC president Dana White was in attendance. At the post-fight press conference, Punk vowed to fight on, but conceded he was not certain whether it would be in the UFC.

“My initial venture into this was gonna be at the lowest level,” said Punk, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. “This opportunity just got presented to myself and I would have been a fool to say no. I don’t know what happens from here on out. What if I get cut? I don’t know. I think that’s a possibility. Do I want that to happen? No. But who’s to say where I go from here? I don’t know. I definitely want to keep going.”

“There’s probably an alternate reality somewhere where I win and I’m still disappointed in myself. That’s just who I am. I’m just really, really hard on myself. I lost and it sucks and it was lopsided and it’s upsetting. But I know I’m better than that.”

“I’m beating myself up way more than I got beat up. I’m supremely disappointed. … I wanted to win. I wanted to perform. It didn’t happen.”

“People can say I didn’t belong here. They said I wasn’t gonna make it to the Octagon and they said I wasn’t gonna make it after the back surgery. Then it was I wasn’t gonna make weight. I was happy I did it.”

White spoke with Fight Network’s John Pollock following UFC 203 about Stipe Miocic’s defeat of Alistair Overeem, Joe Silva’s departure, an update on Georges St-Pierre, and CM Punk’s future with the league.

He’s a nice guy, I like him, I have a lot of respect for him,” said White. “He wanted to give it a shot. I gave him his shot.

He probably shouldn’t have his next fight in the UFC. Just like I said with Brock, having your first fight in the UFC is tough. As you see tonight, even if it is against a guy who’s 2-0. This is a tough place to learn.

White spoke nicely but firmly about his friend. In the UFC 203 post-fight wrap-up with Mike Goldberg, color commentator Joe Rogan was not unkind, but he was frank.

“What [Punk] did was great, it was courageous,” said Rogan, as transcribed by Nick Baldwin for BE. “But it was delusional. That’s my feeling. My feeling when I was watching him hit the bag, when I was watching him train, and when I was watching him hit things. It’s not like he can’t ever learn, but there’s a journey as a martial artist, and there’s a path that each martial artist [is] on. And different people are on different paths. There’s a reason brown belts don’t compete with white belts in jiu-jitsu tournaments. It’s because it’s not fair. And what we saw tonight is not fair.

“Mickey Gall’s way better. He’s really good. I watched that kid roll, I watched him take the back when he fought Mike Jackson – he’s really good. And I just think that this is what happens when you take a guy who’s an elite young kid and you have him fight someone’s who a celebrity and wants to challenge himself. It’s not the way to do it.”

“If I had to give CM Punk some advice – I hate to harp on this – I’d say fight as an amateur. Fight people at your level. He wants to do this, he wants to challenge himself, he wants to continue – God bless him. He’s a fun guy. I like him. But this is not the way to do it.”

The great thing about mixed martial arts is that in the final analysis, what happened speaks for itself. No one needs to explain anything to CM Punk; the beating is sufficient.

One hopes.