You got Punk'd

 Hello everyone, so I wrote this the day after  Christmas. There's a lot of info, I know, but It's an easy and fun read. I  did some searching for Punk's potential opponent. So that should be interesting. Hope you enjoy it. Also, you can now find me on facebook, /armbarsmmaworld . There I'll be posting quick, short news, pictures and videos. While this is gonna be where I'm gonna rant about everything and anything mma related. I'm still pretty green in this blogging thing so go easy on me if you spot any spelling errors or something like that.  So without further ado, I am Armbar. Saying; Good fight and good night. 

                           

Just a regular fight card

On December 6th, the mma fans across the globe  were jumping from joy and anticipation as the best and the brightest  the world of mma has to offer  competed against each other in one the last UFC cards  in 2014, UFC 181. The event  displayed a high variety of great fighting and saw 2 freshly crowned champions  return from injuries and make their first title defenses. UFC's welterweight champion Johny Hendricks faced off  against  Robbie Lawler  for the second time and  lightweight champ Antony Pettis took on Gilbert Melendez. The fight card proved once again that UFC  trully has the best fighters in the world. The greatness of a high quality fight card was quickly overshadowed by a breaking announcement. WWE's former champion CM Punk, at the tender age of 36, signed a multi fight deal with UFC and will be making his octagon( and mma )debut, in the middleweight division, sometime in 2015.

                         

 All eyes on me

To say the announcement raised media and internet attention, would be quite the understatement. Joe Rogan's interview with CM Punk (real name Phil Brooks) , held during the UFC 181 event, as of today( 26.12.14.)  holds half a million (495,500) views on UFC's official youtube channel. Even a special press conference was made,concerning just his signing. So it would be fair to say the story raised quite a few eyebrows. In order to put things into perspective UFC 181 post fight press conf.  highlight with both the new Welterweight champion (R. Lawler) and defending Lightweight champion ( A. Pettis) among other fighters, holds 115, 000 views. The news of Punk's signing  was not met with a lot of positive  words among his new peers and colleagues. CM Punk went from being a former WWE superstar most noted for being the longest reigning(modern day) WWE champion  to the most hated person in  mma over night.   

 It's all Dana's fault

The hate that was generated towards CM Punk seems more then fair at first, considering the UFC is the big leagues, where only „the best of the best“ reside. On the other hand, hating on one particular person for pursuing his dreams and grabbing an opportunity when it presents itself, seems quite silly. If anyone deserves  to be criticized it should be the other most hated person in mma, Dana White. He inadvertently threw a giant slap in the face to everyone of his employees who worked hard for years and dedicated their lives just so they could get a chance to compete against the best in the UFC. Now here comes this 0-0 guy with literally no (none-scripted) fighting experience or any real mma training and gets a shot at the big leagues. It sends a bad message and reduces UFC to a popularity contest. Now this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Couple of months ago, while doing a media scrum, Dana White was all smiles and giggles and bursting with optimism when being asked about a potential Gina Carano signing and a super fight against the champion Ronda Rousey. He was saying that Gina would get an immediate title shot, despite the fact that she; hasn't fought in 6 years, fights in a division above Ronda's, has a history of troubling weight cuts and is coming of a stoppage loss. Going back in time even further, now to 2010, when the former HW and LHW champion Randy Couture fought a PPV main event fight against a HW boxer, James Toney, with a 0-0 mma record. Then there is the  case of the self proclaimed „American Gangster“, Chael Sonnen, who has quite the history of being given undeserved title shots, thanks to his silver tongue. Returning back now to the tail end of  2014, it becomes clear that CM Punk fighting in the UFC, despite lacking the necessary skill set and fight experience needed for such a task, isn't an isolated case. It's the lastest event in a recurring trend. Now with all that being said and done, Punk is signed with the UFC for a mutli fight deal. So, no matter how hard it angers the haters, he will have a fight  in 2015 and there isn't a thing anyone can do about it.

 Prepare for the worst, hope for the best

With each passing day more and more info about Punk's preparations are being leaked and it becomes clear  that he is taking his newly found career path, very seriously. Just like a lot of fighters welcomed Punk with.  Although it was looking likely that he would pick American Kickboxing Academy as his training team, with the likes of Daniel Corimer, Cain Velasquez, Jon Fitch and Khabib Nurmagomedov at his disposal to train with. Punk decided to join team Roufusport as his new „home away from home“ where he will develop his much needed fighting skills. Team Roufusport has some real „hard hitters“ within their ranks. Most notable are Bellator's former and One FC's current WW champion Ben Askern(who was amongst the many fighters who weren't pleased with his signing), UFC's LW champion Anthony Pettis and UFC veteran Alan Belcher. Knowing this, it leaves hope that Punk will not go down in flames  the second he steps foot inside the octagon. Having a good fight camp is very important, because if you surround your self with the wrong people your results could be very limited and you will probably perform very poorly. Likewise, being surrounded with the right people who can sharpen your skills and make you evolve as a fighter and learn constantly can make you a champion.

                       

     left to right; Din Thomas, Tyron Woodley, Ben Askern, Anthony Pettis and CM Punk     

                                                  

 CM Punk vs TBD

Ok, so now that we know where and with who he will  be training and at which weight class he will be fighting. This still leaves the mystery of his „yet-to-be-announced“ opponent  unsolved and everyone and their grandma is dying to find out who will have the honors of introducing Mr. Punk  to the world of mixed martial arts. Shortly after the announcement of Punk's signing, Dana White stated that he(Punk) will start at the bottom and fight his way up, facing at first an opponent Dana described as being a „1-0, 1-2, 1-1“–esque type of fighter that won't have much fight experience. The problem that arises here is that the UFC, in it's entire middleweight division doesn't have a fighter that fits that description. Which would mean that the UFC will have to do a specific „search and sign“ mission and knowingly contract an an inexperienced fighter just so Punk has someone to fight. I would also like to point out that CM Punk doesn't fight for chump change. In the WWE he was getting around a million dollars annually. Him getting anything close to that number per fight would be very, very unlikely but I doubt that he's willing to sell himself short. Brock Lesnar got 250,000 $ for his UFC debut loss against Frank Mir and for his rematch against Frank at UFC 100 he got a cool 400,000 $. Now CM Punk is no Brock Lesnar, but since he is signed purely based on popularity, it's a pretty safe bet to say he will be getting close to what „The Next Big Thing“ got for his debut. Which raises the question does he deserve to get that much money right of the bat? A lot of fighters work their ass off and don't get to see that kind of money until years later in their careers. If they ever get that kind of money. UFC bending over backwards for a single fighter tells alot about the company, but let's not turn this into an angry anti-UFC rant.

"The contestants are..."

So, is there ANYONE  currently signed with the UFC that Punk could fight?

Well, with a little help from UFC's official website, some minor searching and fighter profiling I've managed to find some potential candidates within the UFC's ranks that could end up fighting Mr. Brooks. I narrowed down the list to 4 contractually obligated fighters. My criteria was that the fighter has to have as little fight experience as possible, has to be currently signed with the UFC and has to have no more then  6 or 7 fights, with as many losses as possible. So let's meet our contestants!

                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                     Dan Kelly

   Dan(8-0), looking super excited, has a win on his record by way of throwing his opponent out of the ring

Our first candidate is Dan Kelly, Aussie Olympic judoka with an 8-0 mma record. Unlikely opponent, but he is a grappler and all but two of his victories are submission finishes. Which would mean, Dan would almost certainly take Punk to the ground and try to finish him there. From there Punk would  at least have a good chance to fight back, since he trains BJJ on an on/off basis with the Gracies for some time now. Which would mean he more then likely picked up a few helpful tips and tricks along the way.  

                         

                                          Guilherme Vasconcelos

                             Guilherme(3-2) used to be a model, hence his nickname: "bomba" 

Introducing  our next candidate, Guilherme Vasconcelos a Brazilian and a former "TUF" contestant who is a BJJ based fighter with a 3-2 mma record. This would be the best possible match up for Punk from the current MW roster. Guilherme, a BJJ fighter, would look to take Punk down and submit him. From here Punk can do his magic. It would be a BJJ vs BJJ fight and I'm betting that Punk's "jitz' game" would come into play.  Also in the preparation for this fight he could focus on something he's already good at(BJJ), and not worry all that much about getting into a fist fight and getting KO'd. So that could help him alot to prepare mentally. How good exactly is CM Punks BJJ is a big question mark. He stated that he's still a white belt because he trains very sporadically  but mentioned that he is around blue belt level skill wise, which isn't enough to warranty a win over a skilled BJJ black belt but it's a start. 

                                                          

                                                              Roger Narvaez

                                Roger(7-1) is a fire fighter in the Corpus Christi Fire Department

Next up we got, Roger Narvaez , a well rounded Texan with a 7-1 fight record. Roger is a lengthy fighter who finishes fights with an overall good mma game, his only loss was a last minute call to fight Pat Cummins in a weight class above the one he fights in. So this would be a very dangerous fight for Punk which he would more than likely lose. Let's hope Joe Silva isn't in a sadistic mood and skips over Roger's name when he starts scouting for Punk's first fight. 
Our last two candidates are Antonio Dos Santos and Ricardo Abreu and they mean business. 

                                               

                                                    Antonio Dos Santos

                                               Antonio(6-2) has 3 first round knockout finishes

Antonio Dos Santos is a 6-2 former Jungle Fight LHW champion, he has 4 ko wins and one submission victory. Being a former LHW champ tells me that his is a big dude. Likely has a "walk around" weight at about  220-ish lbs before cutting down to 185lbs. Punk said that he was at around 212 and very out of shape as of  couple of months prior to his signing. Meaning he's gonna be a small middleweight and someone like Antonio with all that mass and ko power behind him would probably make short work of someone like Punk. 

                                                         Ricardo Abreu
                                 

                          lack of sponsorship deals forced Ricardo to stop competing  in BJJ 

Last but not least, we got Ricardo Abreu. Ricardo is a BJJ whizz who prepared Michael Bisping's BJJ for the Vitor Belfort fight. He is a decorated grappler and has 3 back to back, first round, first minute TKO finishes. His fight record stands at 5-0 with 4 of those being all first round finishes. This is another nightmare match up for Punk. Aggressive undefeated, big middleweight grappler who doesn't shy away from striking. Again, his only chances here are if the fight goes to the ground and Punk suddenly gets a confidence boost.

What can we expect from this Punk?

As you can see there isn't a lot of breathing room in the UFC for CM Punk. He's learning to swim in shark infested waters, but there is hope. He seems in no rush to get inside the octagon before being 100%  he can win. He stated that he will make his mma debut  in fall/winter of 2015. which gives him plenty of time to find out what works for him and what doesn't. His fight team is very good. Pettis' TKD and Askern's Olympic wrestling will benefit Punk greatly. I'd bet that he will stop by  more often to the  Gracie's BJJ classes from now on and improve his game. More importantly, he will find out if this is really something he wants to do for a living. There is a realistic chance that once he has his first real sparring session and gets hit with a proper punch he might go „screw this, I'm calling back Vince“ and return to WWE. Unlikely, given his recent statments about WWE, but not impossible. His new found team, Roufusport, has been under a lot of controversy lately becasue of a fighter's death. A lot of former team members have went public and spoken against the aggressive  training nature of the coaches and Punk was very vocal about the amount of  head trauma, injuries and carelessness he endured with his former employer. So maybe it won't take all that much for him to realize that he is, in the words of  Lethal Weapon's Sergeant Murtaugh,  „too old for this shit“. Is CM Punk going to be the next MW champion? I wouldn't bet on it. Can he fight for a living? We don't know. He seems enthusiastic about fighting and giving it a shot and he has realistic expectations about his future career. What does he bring to the table? Well, the major PPV stars are more or less all gone now. GSP is partying it up somewhere in Canada with a octagon return date unknown, Brock Lesnar is still F5ing people(and sharks) every now and then in the WWE for more money and less work (altough the talks about his return are getting louder, now with even Bellator throwing it's name out there for a potential signing), Anderson Silva has a superfight with Nick Diaz coming up on January 31st, but the  aftermath of the Weidman rematch made him sit out the entire 2014 and will likely retire in the near future. The UFC needs ratings and this is where CM Punk steps in. He's been getting a lot of attention since his WWE departure and indications are that he just might bring in some of the WWE crowd and spike up the PPV numbers. Haters will want to see him get humiliated and his fans will want to see him win. This is striking the iron while it's hot. He's already a developed house hold name and the UFC's marketing team won't need much work for his promotion. He knows how to sell himself and the company he works with. Which is exactly what the UFC needs. That's why they took the gamble of signing a former professional wrestler with a very limited  martial arts knowledge, who is gonna be 37 years old by the time he fights. 

      
Final Thoughts

Is this a good idea? Time will tell, but I'm not so sure. If his first fight goes ok, hot of the heels of a UFC win, he will get a step up in competition and from there things get a bit more complicated. Dana will more than likely want to put him up against a well known name(because he will want that golden goose of his to start laying some golden eggs). It will probably be one of the many fighters that called him out when he signed the contract and I'd guess the number of guys that will want to fight him will only increase after his first fight. So let's say it's someone from the bottom of the UFC's top 15 say;  Brad Tavares. Brad is 12-4 and has been fighting professionally since 2007. That is 7 years of fighting experience spread out over 16 fights. That's 15 fights more than Punk will probably ever have. The skill gap between CM Punk and his potential  future opponents becomes very wide once he gets past the „1-0, 1-1, 1-2“ fighter, who ever he may be. Will he be able to make up for  the years and years of fight experience other fighters have on him? I highly doubt it, but I believe he will give it his best and at the end of the day say he followed his dreams and made them come to life.