Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
Hours after beating WWE's Dr. Chris Amann in court yesterday, CM Punk was singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the Chicago Cubs game.
Punk started doing media for this Saturday's UFC PPV, where he is slated to fight Mike Jackson in the opening bout of the PPV broadcast from the United Center. He was interviewed earlier today by MMA reporter Ariel Helwani:
MMA Fighting also did an interview with Duke Roufus, CM Punk's MMA coach, to talk about how he has improved since his last fight and what effect his court case had on Punk's training, among other things. Highlights:
How Punk has improved since his last fight: "Incredibly. The first fight, I’m not gonna lie, we all rolled the dice. It was like this crazy science project. I haven’t been that nervous before a fight before, honestly. And we’re really good friends. Ariel Helwani and myself and Chael Sonnen in Chicago in January 2013, we all sat together with Punk and watched Ben Askren beat Karl Amoussou when Thursday night Bellator was on. We hit it off very well from that point. We became friends. I personally care for the guy very much. He’s a solid individual. It was nerve-wracking. That being said, I don’t have those nerves coming into this one, because we had a session [Sunday] with coach [Scott Cushman] and with coach [Daniel] Wanderley with Punk and everything just seemed just all together. Not that he was struggling, but he just peaked out. It’s like he understand the sixth sense of fighting. It took him a while to get that. That’s the thing. Everyone knows the Xs and Os of this stuff and we teach you the Xs and Os, the theories. But there’s instinct. And the instinct if there — the reactions, the seeing things before they happen. Having that sixth sense and he had it. I’m very happy about that. Sometimes fighters never get that."
How Punk being in court has affected his training: "That’s why I put it all together [Sunday]. Sometimes when these fighters are alone and away from us, two things happen. They either neglect all the details and training they did and they just shelve it and they don’t process it. Punk, that’s all he thought about. Some of the details that we’ve been working on for two years all culminated in our workout [Sunday]. You can’t write this stuff, it’s crazy. Him just working on the little details by himself because he’s dealing with this court case ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise. And the other thing, I think it’s actually lit an extra fire under his ass and put some grit in him. Not that he doesn’t have the grit, but I think this is some extra motivation coming into the fight Saturday. The stress of being in the court room around lawyers, I think he’s gonna want to put it on someone this weekend."
Could it affect his weight cutting: "One thing we did because he was an older guy for the sport is he doesn’t cut a lot of weight. A lot of the fighters I’m working with, I’ve really jumped in and taken control of the situation. I’m trying to train them more like we did in striking. I’m not into big weight cutting. I’m just not a big fan of it, because the game is changing. Especially a few years back, you’d be the bigger guy and wrestle and lay on people, use your size. You’re seeing less wrestling than ever, less jiu-jitsu than ever. Basically, you’ve gotta be in shape to fight either three, five-minute rounds or five five-minute rounds of striking. So you’ve gotta change the way you prepare the athletes. With Punk, we didn’t want to take him down that rabbit hole of thinking, how am I gonna perform with a weight cut, let alone how am I gonna fight and beat this guy? There’s already too much for him to think about that he’s in the UFC in his second pro fight, now let’s go down the rabbit hole of a crazy weight cut? No, not even. I think you do quite well when you have energy."
Any indication Punk has given him about his future in MMA: "He’s gonna continue. He’s got too much vested in this. He truly loves the martial arts lifestyle. He’s very into the culture of this. When he was coming up as a wrestler, he wrestled in Japan, in the Japanese professional wrestling culture is very martial-arts based. A lot of things that I did when I trained in the K-1 dojo in Thailand are a lot of the same things he did in Japanese wrestling. That’s kind of our connection in the gym. He mops the mat every day. There’s a term in wrestling in Japan, it’s called the ‘young boys.’ Those are the young guys. When I stayed my first of many times in Thailand, I had to mop, I had to sweep the gym. I had to do dishes, laundry with the young fighters if I was gonna be accepted as part of the camp. That’s something that he’s done very well. He mops the mat every day when he trains. It’s impressive to see a guy with his success keep that humility and grounding."
Thanks to Steven Fernandes, Ben Mitchell and everyone else who sent along Punk-related material today.
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
