Frank Mir: I’m ‘Pissed’ CM Punk Is Fighting In UFC
Once CM Punk signed with the UFC in December of 2014, everyone had an opinion on the UFC’s decision to sign the former WWE star, who has no previous MMA experience. Nearly two years later, Punk will be finally stepping inside the world famous October this Saturday night at The Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio when he takes on Mickey Gall in a welterweight bout on the main card of UFC 203.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir is clearly not a fan of Punk signing with the UFC and fighting in the promotion. Mir went off on Punk during a recent episode of his podcast Phone Booth Fighting.
“I’m gonna be honest, it pisses me off. I don’t like it. I’m trying to be impartial and not be a dick but the more we talk about this the more I’m getting angry at the situation because it’s bullsh*t. This is not a legitimate fight. This is not a legitimate UFC fight. We have these kind of fights in boxing … they have those celebrity matchups where it’s a name guy that shouldn’t be in there getting in there with somebody that has a novelty to it and people might turn it on for the novelty act behind it but you wouldn’t have it on the undercard of a Mayweather fight. They wouldn’t put those two together and the fact that we are putting that on there doesn’t sit well with me.”
Mir explained that MMA is trying to be legitimate and be as credible as boxing is but in his mind, a move to sign a former pro wrestler hurts the credibility of MMA.
“We want to be in New York and we want to be legitimate and we want to be even with boxing and have that kind of credibility, and boxing wouldn’t do this. I mean, they do do this but they don’t put it on the same card with their championship fights.”
Mir hopes that Punk is a mastermind at psychological warfare because he thinks Punk is a normal guy with no ambition to be a fighter.
“I hope that CM is just a mastermind at psychological warfare and that he’s purposefully putting this kind of footage out there to lull [Gall] down to make it to where [he] gets comfortable, to where [he thinks] maybe CM is not gonna be that good of a fighter. Watching him fight, I felt like I was down at the gym watching just normal guys that have no ambition to be fighters, just taking the class. I’ve seen some of the women taking the aerobic kickboxing class move better.”
“If he wins, it’s great, he pulls over some of the pro wrestling fans. If he loses, you still have a lot of pro wrestling fans tuning in and hopefully the rest of the card measures up to what we hope it measures up to and we have a lot of crossover fans that stick.”
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