What do you say to a guy who just whooped on you in front of millions of people? In most cases, nothing. At the end of many UFC matches, you’ll see one guy celebrating and the other walking out of the ring with his head down in shame. But that’s not what happened at the end of CM Punk’s match with Mickey Gall at UFC 203.
If you didn’t see it by now, Punk delivered one hell of a post-fight speech after losing by submission in the first round of his very first MMA fight. He dropped all kinds of gems and somehow managed to turn his L into a learning experience for all of the kids out there watching:
But before he told the world what he was feeling following the fight, he shared some words of wisdom with Gall, the man who had just overwhelmed him in the Octagon. You can hear those words in the latest edition of UFC's "The Thrill and the Agony."
"Listen to me," Punk said as he put his arm around Gall. "Don’t ever say you don’t belong, okay? You always belong. You’ve got to believe in yourself. You’re obviously a better man that I am, okay? Don’t ever fucking short yourself. Everybody else wants to short you. You know, I believed in myself. You’ve got to believe in yourself as much as I believe in me."
A lot of people have criticized Punk for the way he handled himself in the months leading up to his first fight, and there were certainly plenty of MMA fighters willing to take shots at him as a result of it following the UFC 203 match. But it’s hard to hate on the way Punk conducted himself after his loss, especially when you consider how bad he looked during it.
