Pendred wants to humiliate ‘laughing stock’ CM Punk
Cathal Pendred: “I got myself involved in a heavy Twitter exchange this week – and it could lead to a real business opportunity down the line.”
There has been endless speculation about who CM Punk (real name The Best in the World) will fight when he makes his UFC debut. Cookie Monster and Cathal Pendred bickered bitterly on Twitter earlier in the week, and now ‘The Punisher’ has penned a column for Ireland’s The Mirror, saying he would take the fight if offered.
I got myself involved in a heavy Twitter exchange this week – and it could lead to a real business opportunity down the line.
This former pro wrestling guy, CM Punk, posted a video of himself in training on Tuesday, preparing for his UFC debut.
But he’s kind of the laughing stock of the UFC. He’s gone from wrestling, with it’s scripted theatrics, into MMA, a legitimate, highly-skilled sport.
In fairness he’s trained at a really good gym for the last year but no one makes their MMA debut in the UFC – you slowly build yourself up, work your way through the ranks.
It’s a weird situation but I can understand from a business perspective why the UFC are going with it.
I’ve no major objection to him, even if a stuntman entering this highly-skilled sport is the equivalent of me wanting to become a pro footballer and joining Man United.
So I was half slagging myself off when I Tweeted a pic of him hitting the pads and commented that he makes me look like Ali.
Fact is, people haven’t been too impressed with that part of my game either, so it was a little dig at me as well.
I didn’t tag him on the Twitter post but he has 2.3m followers, and within minutes he replied – and we spent the night dishing abuse back and forth. I had great fun with it.
My Twitter feed blew up. A lot of MMA fans said they’d like to see us fight.
While WWE fans said they wanted the same thing, it’s a bit delusional on their part – they somehow think it would be a competitive fight!
A hell of a lot of UFC fighters have been calling him out, trying to organize a fight with him because there’s a lot of bucks in it given he’s such high a profile draw.
He’s ignored them all, so the fact he got onto me makes me think he might fancy himself against me, which is quite funny in truth.
I’d love it. It would be a bit of fun. He’ll probably be humiliated on his debut but the UFC will continue to use him to attract more supporters.
I have my own fight in October to prepare for but if something comes of this fight down the line, I’ll jump at it.
UFC president Dana White is on record as saying Punk will fight someone of comparable experience, which Pendred absolutely is not, which makes the Green Power Ranger more likely. That’s the guys with the Jesus Didn’t Tap apparel line. These things happen in MMA.
And in defense of the UFC, if they didn’t sign Punk, every other promotion would have in a heartbeat, getting a proven PPV draw, the only one in the sport outside of the UFC.