CM Punk appeared on Sports Center recently, to talk about his new deal with the UFC, and to return fire at some of the current fighters calling him out, namely Matt Brown. Or, perhaps not returning fire, so much as acknowledging praise, however faint it may be. Brown said of Punk, recently, “What I have a problem with is CM Punk being dumb enough to think he can do it.” Brown went on to call Punk out, offering himself as a “real man” for Punk to fight. For his part, CM Punk doesn’t seem to be taking the bait, but he is quickly setting himself up as one of the most engaging and well spoken athletes on the UFC roster.
Well, thanks for calling me an athlete, Matt. I appreciate it.
…
You know, I’m not sure I have a response for Matt. I’m a fan of Matt, I like watching… One of my favorite fights last year was Matt Brown vs. Erick Silva. I thought that was awesome. Matt Brown’s an awesome fighter and I’m still going to continue to love watching him fight. But, everybody has an opinion, whether it’s positive or negative. And the negative ones, while I understand their perspective, I understand where he’s coming from, and I can honestly, probably relate to that, and the irony of it isn’t lost on me. Yes, I’m coming into this new thing, and there’s probably a lot of fighters that are, you know, I don’t want to say… Well, they’re just upset. And I can understand that, and more power to you. I understand your point of view. My job is to do what’s good for me and my family and along the way, if I change your mind, Matt Brown, awesome.
He also revisited a question he got earlier in the week from UFC Tonight, on the differences between working with Dana White and Vince McMahon, most notably that Dana White was the more open minded of the two:
You know, I was asked this in an interview earlier in the week, and I kinda wasn’t prepared for it, and I really didn’t like my response. Because it was very vague, like “Oh, well they’re very similar, but they’re very very different.” You know, they’re both driven, they’re both set in their ways, they both have an idea of what is best for their company and everything like that. And I think that’s how they’re the same. How they’re different, I think, is the difference in the generation, you know? Vince is very old school, Dana is more open minded, more kinda… there’s more of a warmth on the UFC side, that I’m experiencing. And Dana’s more openminded, obviously. He hired me. That’s probably as different as I can describe right now.
You can watch the whole interview, embedded below.
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