UFC and CM Punk: Making Sense of a Senseless Pairing

CM Punk signed with the UFC. Ryan Glasspiegel and Stephen Douglas were interested, perplexed, confused and generally dubious. Below is a conversation about his prospects, possible salary, ability to sell UFC PPVs to wrestling fans, and the UFC’s future in general.

Stephen: Over the weekend, the UFC announced the signing of CM Punk. I have heard of CM Punk. He is a professional wrestler. That fact alone tells me that he is a pretty big name and the closest I come to following professional wrestling is getting annoyed that people are tweeting about it whenever there is an event on television. So, Ryan, why have I heard of CM Punk? Besides his fame, what are his credentials? What does that name mean? Please explain why there is professional wrestling in my mostly non-scripted human cockfighting?

Punk has long professed to be a big MMA fan, but one believes that this move was made with an eye toward sticking it to Vince McMahon more than anything else. On the podcast, Punk griped that he was not permitted to accompany Chael Sonnen to the ring for a fight in Chicago (Vince supposedly called UFC “barbaric” and was worried that somebody could die) when Triple H was allowed to be part of Floyd Mayweather’s entourage. The ulterior motive here was presumably that UFC and WWE are partial substitute products with overlapping fan bases. Disposable income spent on one organization does not go to the other, and UFC has previously eaten into WWE PPV buy rates. (The company’s respective leaders also publicly snipe back and forth all the time, but that noise isn’t really worth delving into.)

CM Punk is trained in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, but he’s 36 years old and has apparently sustained upwards of a dozen concussions. This isn’t Brock Lesnar heading to UFC in his athletic prime, but what Jim Ross calls the “curiosity” factor will undoubtedly draw a lot of viewers from WWE and UFC fans alike. On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you for the never-ending flow of MMA fighters calling him out?

Stephen: Wow, a guy who took some Muay Thai and Jiu-jitsu classes wants to try MMA? Talk about an original story line. Am I excited to hear fighters call him out? The MMA Media makes all its money on fights that never happen. [fighter] called out [fighter] accounts for 78% of their business. The ink had barely dried on the Internet when the Green Power Ranger challenged CM Punk.

If CM Punk – you still haven’t told me his real name yet – ever actually fights in the UFC, it will do big business. Again, I’ve heard of this guy so he must be a big deal in that world. It sure does say a lot about the wrestling fanbase that they’re ready to throw money away on this (probable) farce. Dana White has already said that the UFC is going to set Punk up with “a guy that’s 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, something like that. He wanted to do it. We’re going to give him the opportunity.” So basically, he’s going to fight a no-name from The Ultimate Fighter house. If that doesn’t get your juices flowing, I don’t know what will.

Luckily, wrestling fans are the mythical “casual fans” the UFC dreams about. They show up every once in a while to watch a big name in a squash match. This is how we can continue to perpetuate the idea that the sport is still growing while pretending that you don’t get concussions when you bang your head on a glass ceiling. CM Punk has the name-brand head to bang against that glass and the fact that he’ll likely be an immediate PPV success says some sad things about both the UFC and wrestling fans in general. This is the kind of thing that can prop up a diluted UFC product. Also, you have to wonder where do wrestling fans get all that money? Some kind of rich benefactor with no real need for money …

That makes too much sense. So Ryan, how excited are you to throw away money on CM Punk vs. [guy no one has ever heard of] on PPV? Be honest.

Ryan: I mean, I’m one-thousand percent gonna tune in, and we’re talking about it here, so I guess we’re part of the problem. I don’t know if I’m excited about it, but I’m definitely curious enough to use the nebulous “I have to work” excuse on my girlfriend on a Saturday night.

What’s bizarre to me is that all of the issues CM Punk purported to have with Vince McMahon and WWE are ones that would also seem to be the case for Dana White and UFC. One guy micromanages everything. Fighters are independent contractors, but the organizations still hold control over individual sponsorships. Inconsistent and occasionally irrational storytelling. Dana White saying Georges St-Pierre “owes” Johny Hendricks another fight after getting battered in what wound up being judged a controversial victory is similar to the types of things that Punk bitterly left behind. Am I incorrect in my belief that UFC has some unfavorable labor policies? What are some other examples that a casual fan like myself might not know about?

The other big thing is that fighters are going to start getting paid based on their rankings in their division. And those rankings are decided by the media. So if CM Punk came to the UFC to get rich, he’s either not going to, or he’s going to expose the stupidity of the UFC’s new payment system and any media member who might vote for someone completely undeserving, or he’ll be on his own payment plan, which will make the whole thing look like a double standard. So I guess some good could come of this.

Is there anything else that can be said? Any chance this is all just some wrestling stunt? It’s obviously all for publicity on the UFC’s side. What are the chances CM Punk ever actually fights in the UFC? I’d put it at 50/50.

Ryan: I’d put it at 90/10. What good is a publicity stunt if he never actually fights? My guess is that they throw him up against a tomato can in the first match, so he wins and there’s at least a second fight. It will pave the way for UFC to poach other WWE wrestlers for special events, much to the chagrin of Vince McMahon, who will eventually respond by trying to sign away Ronda Rousey. Ironically, an arm’s race of sorts will benefit the laborers in both organizations.

Stephen: Good lord. That is a horrifying Hellscape of a future you just suggested for MMA. The worst part might be the fact that I’m not immediately dismissing it as an impossibility, but that is a whole other conversation. Like everything else in life, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe we can do this again when the Brock Lesnar rumors pick up again or after CM Punk wins/loses that big FOX Sports 1 prelim fight. I guess we’ll find out in 2015.