Right from the get-go when it was decided that CM Punk would be signed by the UFC, Joe Rogan was totally against it. According to the veteran UFC analyst, it’s “ridiculous” and “f—ng crazy” for the ex-WWE star to be opening the UFC 225 main card, let alone be part of the company’s roster of talents.
Punk ended up with his second consecutive professional loss when he was bloodied up and beaten for three rounds by Mike Jackson over the weekend. During a post-fight episode of the JRE MMA Show, Rogan spoke further about Punk’s performance with Bellator fighters Joe Schilling and Daniel Straus.
“He’s a very nice guy and he’s a hard worker, but he does not have athletic talent,” Rogan said (transcript by MMA Mania). “He’s missing… he’s a showman, and when he was in the WWE, he was allowed to say, ‘I am the f—ng man!’ And throw his hand up in the air and say he is the man, and they had it scripted so that he was the man”.
“He doesn’t have the ability to move his body right,” he added. “There’s a lot of guys you can take out there, track and field guys, football players and you can get them to fight better than him in a couple of weeks easily because they are athletes.”
“They’d understand how to shift their weight and throw a punch. He doesn’t have any talent, is all it is, he doesn’t have physical talent for whatever reason. Whether it’s his approach, his intensity. It’s not his coaching, it’s Duke-f—ng-Roufus.”
Rogan also echoed the sentiments of UFC president Dana White about Punk’s opponent Mike Jackson, who is being heavily criticized for not finishing the fight.
“If Mike Jackson went out there and just starched CM Punk with a right hand and a left hook combination and that was the end of it, they would say ‘well, CM Punk, you gave it a shot, that’s it, it’s over. Mike, who’d you like to fight next?’ Now, it’s like ‘No, you’re not even fighting in the UFC anymore because you should’ve stopped him.’
“He tickled him. He f—ng tickled him during the fight.”
From his end, Jackson argued that he simply did not want to give Punk brain damage, which is why he held off a bit and instead chose to “cook him” for three full rounds.
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