CM Punk On Why He Refused To Shake Mickey Gall’s Hand At Weigh-Ins

CM Punk is just 24-hours away from making his highly-anticipated mixed martial arts (MMA) debut at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, and he didn’t take too kindly to his opponent Mickey Gall at weigh-ins Friday evening (August 9, 2016).

When the two adversaries came face-to-face under the bright lights of the weigh-ins stage, Gall’s hand was left extended and alone as Punk refused to shake his 24-year-old counterpart’s hand.

When asked what Gall was saying as the two men exchanged words on stage, courtesy of MMA Fighting, Punk had this to say:

“I don’t know,” Punk said. “He was stuttering. He kept repeating, ‘Oh you don’t want to shake my hand, you don’t want to shake my hand’ or something like that. I’m not here to shake anybody’s hand. I’m here to punch people in the face.

“I think once I had an opponent, once I had a date and once I was free of that damn herniated disc I was walking around with for who knows how long, I was a different person,” said Punk.

“It’s one thing to train, it’s another thing to train with a singular purpose and that’s what I got in Mickey Gall. I know this is a difficult sport to master.

I look forward to mastering it sometime and I realize that will probably never happen, but I will get as good as I possibly can.”

Punk looked in surprisingly good shape once he hit the scale, but in regards to his weight cut to 170-pounds, the former WWE champ said that it was the hardest part of his preparation:

“I’m not gonna say it was easy,” Punk said. “There’s a level of difficulty that goes along with it and I’m a fat kid at heart and I love food and that’s obviously the hardest part.”

You can check out a video of Punk and Gall’s stare-down here:

Punk and Gall will meet on the main card of UFC 203 live on pay-per-view (PPV), from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio tomorrow night (Saturday September 10, 2016).