As we have previously noted, CM Punk was the guest on UFC Unfiltered with Jim Norton and Matt Serra, discussing his transition into MMA and his big UFC debut coming later this year. The following are more transcripts from the interview, which you can listen to in full in the player below.
On his Twitter haters, and if anyone in the UFC locker room has given CM Punk a hard time for making the transition to MMA in such a high-profile way:
“I would much rather listen to my wife, my friends, my trainers, my team. I’m not the best at this. No s***. I know that. I want to f****** give it a shot, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I tend to find the most success fighters” … “they’re the ones that are like, f*** it, go for it. Good for you kid, do your thing. But I understand both points of view, I really do. I understand some of these guys that aren’t making what they probably should make, and they see a guy like me come in and get the red carpet rolled out for me. But at the end of the day, it’s still going to be a f****** fist fight in a cage. And if I lose, then they can laugh at me on Twitter. And if I win, good for me.”
On the difference in mentality between competing in professional wrestling and competing in MMA:
“In wrestling you’re trying to make it look like you’re smashing a guy without touching them at all.” … “There’s a chance you might get jabbed in the face, lose a tooth. You don’t know what the other guy is gonna do sometimes. Some guys are safer than others, is all I’m saying. I’ve worked with my share of unsafe guys. And that’s not to say that they have the mentality that they’re going to go in there and hurt me; some guys are just clumsy.”
On haters who don’t think Punk is taking MMA training seriously:
“It would be amazing if I was just like, f*** it, and I didn’t train, and I didn’t learn anything and just ate hot dogs on my couch, and just didn’t make weight. I’d still get paid! I’m working hard, and I’m taking this very seriously.
On today’s WWE promo landscape:
“The interviews and the promos people remember, those are improv. Now, wrestling’s just over-scripted to death. It’s almost like they’ve got a choke hold on it. Some guys need to operate that way, and I feel like some people need to let loose and be themselves. You’ve got a whole room of guys writing for you; they don’t know you, they don’t know your perspective or your character. If you’re out there being disingenuous, saying words that three other people wrote, I always felt that the crowd could tell, and they’re going to pay attention to their phones, or s*** on whatever segment you’re in. I was always just a big fan of doing my own thing.”
