CM Punk If He Was Jealous Of The Rock Headlining WrestleMania, If He Deserves UFC Main Event Spot
Ahead of his MMA debut at UFC 203, CM Punk spoke with Carrlyn Bathe for The Wrestling Compadres Slamcast. Among other things, Punk discussed his professional MMA debut at UFC 203 against Mickey Gall.
During the interview, Punk was asked whether he thinks he deserves the main event spot at UFC 203. Punk said he is the type of person to always want the biggest platform.
"I'm the kind of guy who says, 'f–k it. I should be in the main event.' And I think if you think anything less of yourself, I think you think less of yourself. So if you come out of the gate and you go, 'I don't belong here', well, then you don't belong here. I've been on pay-per-view before. I guess if you've never been on pay-per-view before, regardless of what it is, then, yeah, maybe you're intimidated by it and maybe it makes you feel a little small. Maybe you get nervous and you think, 'oh, I don't belong here', but I'm a guy that always thinks I belong and knows I belong, who wants my checks to be bigger, wants the spotlight to be brighter, it doesn't phase me."
When asked whether his detractors are jealous of him, Punk confirmed that it may be the case. Punk went on to claim that him riding his celebrity to a main event spot at UFC 203 is vastly different from part-time professional wrestlers returning to WWE to take up spots on WrestleMania cards.
"Well, I think that big fat pay checks will definitely kind of mellow you out. Do you know what I mean? But yeah, maybe [jealous]. I know a lot of people draw the comparison, like, I was very outspoken about part-timers wrestling. You can draw the parallels, but it's kind of apples to turnips. Like, there [are] guys that are workhorses in professional wrestling that I still feel, every year, will get overlooked for the big stars and all that, but this, it's different in the aspect that, I don't think UFC has a cap on the number of fighters they have under contract and the number of active fighters is always, always changing. And you could say that there's a guy like Mickey, who wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me, so jealous? I don't know, but maybe a little bit. I understand that.
"Was I jealous of Rock when he came back to main event two WrestleManias when I felt like I needed to main event one? I wasn't. I don't think jealous was the word to best describe that, so I don't know if I could use that same word in this situation."
To check out the show, click here. If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit The Wrestling Compadres with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: The Wrestling Compadres