Ric Flair on CM Punk: "I Actually Felt Bad for Him"

CM Punk was badly beaten by Mickey Gall in his UFC debut last Saturday. The conversation has turned to what he’ll do next — UFC on FS1? Bellator? WWE? Other pro wrestling — and Ric Flair was asked on his podcast last week about his reaction to the fight.

“I actually felt bad for him,” Flair said. “I just think that number 1 it’s a lot to bite off. He’s been injured a couple times while training, but you always want to go out there and you hope for the best for everybody because if he wins then that makes the wrestling business look good. The problem we have, as I’ve discussed before, he’d been so negative and knocked everybody in WWE — but always treated me good, so I never had a problem with him — but what goes around comes around. If I was him, I don’t know how you follow that.”

So what comes next?

“I don’t know,” Flair said. “He still has a lot of name recognition from his success in WWE, so I’m sure he has options. But I mean, why would you do that again? That was pretty devastating. I’m sure that he had a hard time sleeping that night knowing he put in all that time, and that so many people because of his brand were looking at him. Those are decisions he has to make. Whatever he does, I wish him well. Make no mistake, going out there — just to do that — you win a lot of respect from a lot of people. That’s a tough sport.”