Two years of hype culminated at UFC 203, when the ‘longest reigning WWE World Champion of the last 25 years’, CM Punk, walked into the octagon. Although he signed with UFC back in 2014, his debut got delayed as Punk was not familiar with the sport and needed a lot of training. In his debut, Punk squared off against the 24-year old Mickey Gall.
Compared to Punk, Gall had more experience in MMA which provided him the upper hand in their fight. Within 2:14 minutes of the first round, Gall made the former WWE Champion submit to a rear-naked choke to emerge the victor.
CM Punk was dominated throughout the bout and he could merely fight back. It seems his performance couldn’t impress the UFC President, Dana White, who now comments that Punk shouldn’t be in the promotion.
In the post-UFC 203 session, White had an interview with the Live Audio Radio host, John Pollock where he made that comment about the retired professional wrestler :
"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 and you [saw] tonight, even if it's against a guy who is 2-0. This is a tough place to learn. I don't know if it was an experiment. I became friends with him. He's a nice guy. I like him. I have a lot of respect for him and he wanted to give it a shot. I gave him his shot."
Pollock confirmed about such statements in his recent tweet :
In the post-fight press conference, CM Punk mentioned that he was initially eager to fight at the amateur level, but he changed his decision when the opportunity to fight in the UFC was presented to him. He promised his fans that he will be back in the octagon, but now it might not be in UFC.
CM Punk always had a dream to fight in the octagon, which came true at UFC 203. After that match, it is obvious that he needs more training and fight-experience to hang counterpart his future UFC opponents, for which he may need to step down from his current contract.
