CM Punk Lays Out ‘Elements’ of UFC That WWE Can 100% Apply to Step Up Fan Experience

Human emotions. Does it exist in WWE and UFC? Promotions with brutal fights where people punch each other in the face? What is this combat sports industry? Is it just glistening championship belts, intense fights with precision, theatrics, and trash talk? Not at all. It’s catharsis. In CM Punk’s words, to DC, “the wrestling business on the most granular level is like capturing those feelings and reaching out and making people feel some sort of emotion.” Yes, WWE is entertainment and acting mixed with combat sports, but the fighters all have a backstory and have put their blood, sweat, and tears into training in MMA. It’s not just millions of dollars and glory.

Take UFC, for example. Fighters from Alex Pereira to Francis Ngannou—each of them had immense hardships to cross. From Pereira working at a tire shop in Brazil to becoming a UFC champ. Ngannou crossing literal deserts and seas to get to the USA  and become a UFC and PFL star—these stories are real, and they move us somehow. Getting emotional? Wait, because there’s more. WWE champ CM Punk sat down with Hall of Famer and ex-UFC star Daniel Cormier to speak about what the former has learned from UFC.

The 46-year-old star said, “To be where I’m at in this company and to be able to go to a UFC and so  I kind of move a little bit differently. I  look at different things. I  watch Bruce Buffer, you know what I mean? I watch how he moves in the cage. So, everybody from behind the scenes. Or all the fighters putting their gloves on, you guys, the commentators, I see how you guys operate, and we can 100% apply that to our world. This is the real world, and ours is the real make-believe world where we can take elements of what you guys do. I see stuff like that all the time, and I try to bring that over, like even if it’s camera shots or production stuff or how people get interviewed post-fight, we need to do that more here in wrestling.”

April 1, 2012 – Miami, Florida, USA – WWE wrestler CM PUNK (champion) at World Wrestling Entertainment event Wrestlemania 28 in Miami, Florida. Their WWE Title match at Extreme Rules is advertised for the May 13th show in Rochester. WWE 2012 – Wrestlemania 28 Jericho vs CM Punk – ZUMAr72

CM Punk has been inside UFC and knows what he is talking about. Yes, he did not win his UFC fights like he did back in WrestleMania, but he learned a lot. Not just about fighting styles, but about something intrinsic. Sports is more than audiences getting energized about their teams winning. It’s about the behind-the-scenes hard work, the conversations, booming announcements, conferences, training—everything has significance. CM Punk indicated that WWE can incorporate more of the ‘storytelling’ aspect, just like UFC does, keeping it real in the make-believe world. But the question remains, why did the MMA star not succeed in UFC?

CM Punk did not succeed in UFC, but why?

CM Punk decided to enter the brutal world of UFC, trading scripted acts for something more raw and real. He believed he could conquer the Octagon like he did for the Ring. But the real world of UFC was harsh. His debut against Mickey Gall was nothing short of a nightmare—he was submitted within the first round, and Punk got a reality check pretty fast. His WWE legacy makes up for all the failures, for sure, but his UFC stint became a lesson.

Why did he fail, though? It might have been the lack of gritty experience in pure mixed martial arts training. UFC needs at least a mastery of one form of combat sports, be it jiu-jitsu, BJJ, or wrestling. Lesner had Division 1 wrestling credentials, but Punk just ‘wrestled’ in WWE’s entertainment fights. It’s like coming from the real world of Tron Legacy with arcade games into The Grid made by Sam Flynn’s father—the Disc Wars were brutal (spoiler alert), and a normal man would not survive the Games inside The Grid.

Even though CM Punk had a background in BJJ, his credentials were not as high as a UFC fighter who was in the UFC and MMA for the brutal game from the start. But now, before coming back to WrestleMania 41, CM Punk realized that he learned a lot from UFC and how WWE can incorporate the ‘realness’ of UFC into WWE to emotionally connect to the audiences more. What do you think about his idea? Tell us in the comments below.

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