Source: Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated posted an interview that Jeff Wertheim conducted with CM Punk about his ongoing transition from pro wrestling to mixed martial arts since signing with the UFC. While similar in structure to some of the other interviews he’s given, Wertheim’s questions and Punk being further along in training keep it from being redundant.
In spite of Punk’s history of frustration with fans referring to him by his real name (Phil Brooks), he’s noticeably coming around, if just due to the change. When Wertheim asked which name to call him, Punk was fine either way:
“Either one. You can call me Phil. I answer to both. I don’t really care either way. At the end of the day, Tiger Williams’ real name isn’t Tiger.”
When asked about started as a “blank slate” who has the money to be able to train full-time (instead of splitting tim with a day job like most prospective and journeyman fighters), Punk made it clear that he sees his position as a major positive:
“I’m in a great place! Isn’t that a great place to be? The real tough sons of b—–s are the guys who train as hard as I do and then have to go to their nine-to-five job. I’m fortunate enough to do this as a full-time job. So I get to train two or three times a day. Things are going to be okay for me.”
That’s not the only time he uses the word “job” to describe his current training, as he says this after Wertheim compares Punk’s current lifestyle, even if he did have fights booked every few months, to the full time WWE wrestler lifestyle:
“Just training. What an easy job, right? It’s way better for me. I was burnt out on traveling, so over it. People think I’m crazy, living in Chicago and driving to Milwaukee every day to train. That’s the easiest thing in the world! Ninety minutes from my front door and I can be in my own bed every night? It’s a different lifestyle and it’s done me wonders. Amazing. I love it.”
While he’s most likely just using it as a figure of speech to compare his current lifestyle to what his life was like as a full-time pro wrestler on the road with WWE, it’s a bit of an odd choice since fighters generally aren’t paid to train. As for his old job, more than 14 months after he stopped wrestling, he still seems frustrated with how his career went when asked what made him a good pro wrestler:
“Well, that’s another thing in that phony world. What does it mean to be a good fake wrestler? That’s an identity crisis that I think I struggled with. It doesn’t matter if you’re the best; someone else picks who they want in the top spot.”
That’s in the past, but when asked why more of his former peers haven’t made the move, he doesn’t mince words:
“I am, too. I’ve always been surrounded by guys who talked about it. Half of them talk about it; none of them do it. They have their little comfortable safety net doing WWE stuff, I guess. I would much rather give it a shot than just talk about it.”
The whole interview is worth reading, including more MMA-centric talk like how he dealt with walking teammate Anthony Pettis to the cage for his UFC Lightweight Title loss to Rafael dos Anjos last month at UFC 185.
