With His UFC Signing, CM Punk Is Now Defending WWE & Professional Wrestling

Nothing says “done with wrestling” like CM Punk signing with the UFC. And in doing so, he becomes the #1 defender of the WWE and professional wrestling as a whole. 411’s Greg DeMarco explains why.

It’s been quite the two week period for CM Punk. After leaving the WWE in January, he finally broke his silence and broke the internet—or at least the part where Colt Cabana’s Art Of Wrestling podcast lived! In doing so he blew open the WWE’s medical practices, claimed credit for the creation of The Shield, and effectively questioned Ryback’s entire WWE existence. Then he opened up his own merchandise shop Pro Wrestling Tees, and shut their site down due to traffic. He returned to the podcast airwaves with some Q&A, claiming to have $20 million in the bank and calling Vince McMahon’s apology a publicity stunt.

And now he’s signed a multi-fight contract with Dana White and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Sometimes you can’t make this stuff up—reality is more entertaining than fiction.

Seriously, shit just got real.

Before I discuss CM Punk defending pro wrestling, I need to make one thing clear…this is big. HUGE. By signing with the UFC, CM Punk has vaulted himself into a different stratosphere. It makes him an immediate crossover star. While he isn’t a Hollywood A-Lister like The Rock, and he’s not added to the Mount Rushmore of pro wrestling with the likes of Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair & “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and he’s not suddenly running the show like Triple H, CM Punk is doing something that only one man—Brock Lesnar—has done before him.

And unlike Brock Lesnar, CM Punk has inadvertently put himself in the position of defending the WWE, and professional wrestling in general.

When Brock Lesnar entered the UFC in 2008, he wasn’t defending the WWE or professional wrestling. Brock Lesnar was already four years removed from the WWE, and had a failed attempt at the NFL. Brock’s exit from wrestling was an odd one to say the least, the infamous WrestleMania XX debacle against Goldberg with Steve Austin as referee.

Plus, Brock Lesnar isn’t human. I mean, he obviously is human, but he’s a super human freak of nature. And he was never defined by pro wrestling. During his first run, Brock Lesnar wasn’t a professional wrestler, he’s a super athlete who wrestled professionally.

CM Punk’s life and career have been defined by professional wrestling. At one point it was all he had, and now it’s given him all he could ever imagine. Were it not for professional wrestling, CM Punk wouldn’t be under a UFC contract today.
“My addiction is pro wrestling” is something Punk would often say as the Straight Edge Superstar. That wasn’t the gimmick talking, it was 100% truth. Professional wrestling has defined CM Punk’s life, and in return CM Punk has helped define this generation of professional wrestling.

The irony of CM Punk being a contacted UFC fighter shouldn’t be lost here—because he’s always been a fighter. Regardless of your opinion of what went down in 2014 (and you know mine), he’s had to scratch and claw every step of the way to the top of professional wrestling. He had to do it in Ring of Honor, and he damn sure had to do it in the WWE.

And he did.

If CM Punk stays retired (he will not), he should easily to into the WWE Hall of Fame (political issues aside). His resume speaks for itself. ROH World Champion. Intercontinental Champion. WWE Tag Team Champion. ECW Champion. The only back-to-back Money In the Bank Ladder Match winner. 3-time World Heavyweight Champion. And 2-time WWE Champion, including the longest reign of the modern era at 434 days.

Outside of those accolades are some awards that show the level of performer he became in the WWE. We was Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Wrestler of the Year and Most Popular Wrestler of the Year in 2011, was crowned #1 in the PWI500 in 2012,and ended 2012 as PWI’s Wrestler of the Year and Most Hated Wrestler of the Year.

And give the man a microphone—any microphone (including the one at the end of a commentary headset)—and he’ll have the fans eating out of the palm of his hand. On top of every championship and award he earned, he might go down in wrestling as the business’s best promo. Ever.

More than almost anyone else, CM Punk is defined by pro wrestling. Then he walked away from it, got himself healthy, and is happy no longer being a pro wrestler.

Now he’s a UFC fighter, and while he’ll never admit or embrace it, every time he steps into that Octagon, he’s defending professional wrestling. The performer that he is earned him the opportunity to start his professional MMA career in the UFC (something even Brock Lesnar didn’t get to do), and it’s made him a huge draw for the promotion. But when the official gives the command to fight, Punk is a professional wrestler fighting in the UFC, and whether he wants it or not (and he doesn’t) he is carrying professional wrestling on his shoulders.

Brock Lesnar finished his MMA career (for now) with a record of 5-3. He was 2-1 overall and 1-1 in the UFC when he was given a world title shot. CM Punk can have losses on his record and be a successful MMA fighter. And if he does, he’ll have defended professional wrestling, in al it’s “fakeness,” to the world of real, legal, regulated fighting.

And we’ll owe him a debt of gratitude for that…

…a debt the WWE will repay when they bring him back as a part-timer making a big paycheck because he went out and turned himself into a draw outside the world of wrestling, which makes him an even bigger draw inside the world of wrestling.

CM Punk will become the highly paid part-timer he hated, and you’ll all love him for it. Which is okay, because he’ll have earned it.

How’s that for a brass ring?

Greg DeMarco is a wrestling fan of over 30 years and has also worked on the independent circuit as a promoter, announcer, character and booker. Greg a weekly contributor at 411Mania.com, applying his opinionated style to the world of pro wrestling on Sundays and Thursdays.

He began writing for 411Mania in October 2010 and has been pissing readers off ever since!

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