CM Punk lost his debut UFC fight against Mickey Gall last night. Of course. What the hell were we expecting to see? I don’t play tennis, and if I trained for two years with Nick Bollettieri, it wouldn’t matter; the No. 400 ranked player in the world would still hand me my ass.
For a guy who gets extremely defensive about knowing the difference between professional wrestling and MMA, Punk didn’t fight like he knew the difference. The bout lasted two minutes and 14 seconds. When the bell rang, Punk took zero time to feel out his opponent and assess his options. Instead, he blindly charged with his hands held high, and he fell victim to a double leg takedown.
Punk never got back on his feet. Gall transitioned from side-control to mount to back, and then he ground-and-pounded Punk before locking in a rear naked choke. In other words, the fight was exactly what would happen if, hypothetically, a 37-year-old with no fighting experience fought a trained, Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter who was 13 years his junior.
What a relief this must be for Gall, a rising prospect who improved his record to 3-0. He took a lot of flack for using Toni Basil’s “Mickey” as his entrance music, but if you can lay a beatdown like that, you can use the My Little Pony theme if you want.
But what if the fight had gone past the first round? What if Punk caught Gall with a lucky shot? It would have been an embarrassment for MMA, a sport that somehow holds itself above the politics and fixed nature of boxing and professional wrestling, but simultaneously signs untrained celebrities to multi-fight contracts. Clearly, Dana White isn’t above some razzle dazzle. And like any boxing or wrestling promoter, White’s priorities are his brand and bottom line. Gall isn’t making nearly as much money as Punk, which Punk was good enough to point out a week ago:
If Punk actually wanted to be a fighter, he might have started at a smaller promotion and worked his way up.
