Cookie Master Punk, Straight-edge Iconoclast, Phil Brooks steps foot inside the octagon, Live from Ohio at UFC 203 pay-per-view. Punk will lock horns with Mickey Gall who earned his right to be CM Punk’s first opponent after submitting newcomer Mike Jackson in the first round and is clearly ‘looking for a fight’.                

When UFC President Dana White signed the Chicago Made two years ago after the latter’s bitter acrimonious divorce with WWE and the sport of professional wrestling in early 2014, huge sparks uproared in the MMA world for signing a sports entertainer with zero fights, while many veterans offered to fight Punk and send him backpacking. He was set to debut in mid-2015, but injuries loomed and it never happened. Most media reports criticized UFC’s decision to cash on Punk’s huge success and fame from WWE where he was a constantly featured main-event attraction.

The UFC 203 co-main eventer Alistair Overeem particularly has been very vocal of Punk’s decision to fight and he has publicly displayed his outrage, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. I totally understand and realize you need to have these ‘show fights’ to kind of boost the sport.’

There have been innumerable citations of Brock Lesnar as the prototype flux, who made easy and successful transition to Mixed Martial Arts, even captured the UFC Heavyweight Championship. What’s worth noting is that Lesnar is a super heavyweight and there are not much of notches at the top of the food chain as they are in Punk’s Welterweight Division, which is highly competitive and ruthless with the likes of Silva, Gregor and Diaz. Not all transitions have been very successful, regarding Dave Bautista in this context who retired unceremoniously from MMA after a single decisive victory. He signed with CES where an overweight Vince Lucero had completely embarrassed him in the sport. Bautista vowed to fight again but pay cheques from Hollywood were fat enough to change his mind.

CM Punk on the other hand signed with MMA’s top promotion, UFC and is fighting a fiercely young Gall (better experienced than he is), making it even tougher for him to stay to his claims. Over the two years CM Punk has talked about making a point and ‘testing himself’. More than him testing himself, it is clearly the octagon testing him.

In the lead up to the fight Fox Sports 1 aired a documentary, ‘The Evolution of Punk’ to follow Punk’s journey after the fabled squared circle and his preparations for the transition to fighting inside the octagon. Punk sat down to talk about his impending fight this Saturday, his back injuries sustained in the training camp which seceded his debut for one full year and his plans after Ohio.”Everything hinges on that night. I definitely think a huge part of me is just gonna want to keep the train rolling and get another fight as soon as I can. There’s also another part of me that’s just gonna want to go to a bunch of Cubs games, because this is the year. So it all hinges on that night,” he said.

Though Gall, 24 is highly favoured to win, against an older Punk, 38, he dispelled all such thoughts when talking, ‘Honestly there’s no assuming. I’m gonna win. I’ve never been more confident about something in my entire life. I’ll probably sit on the beach for a little bit, take a little vacation with the wife but I’ll get bored real quick and I’ll just want to keep going. I’ll want to get the second fight as soon as I can.’

White has mentioned in the press conference that it will be totally up to Punk to decide if wants to fight again. Considering his enthusiasm, it may be coming soon for the underdog. He might certainly win against an overly amateur Gall, but where does he go from here? UFC cannot scout untrained fighters to job to their former-WWE attraction. And it is highly unlikely to see Punk box around with the class elite, say Conor McGregor. While, Renzo Gracie has long predicted the outcome that Punk will win via a guillotine submission, other than a regular CM Punk frenzy from wrestling universe, it is doubtful what this move can accomplish for UFC or for Punk’s individual career other than a force-fed PR to the fans.