Despite back surgery, having no martial arts experiance and being 38 years old, CM Punk won’t have you count him out yet. Previously having a fight announced against fellow MMA rookie Mickey Gall, it seemed at long last that CM Punk (real name Phil Brooks) would be making his MMA debut at mega event UFC 200 in July.
Those plans were however scrapped, as a day after Gall’s win over Michael Jackson at UFC Fight Night: Hendricks vs. Thompson, Punk announced he would be undergoing surgery on a long-time back issue that had been causing him problems.
Despite surgery, Punk maintains he’ll be fighting in 2016, although currently he won’t be able to say when.
Appearing on MMAFighting’s MMA Hour today, CM Punk spoke at length about his recent surgery, how it’s affected his training and UFC debut prospects.
“It’s been an issue for a very long time,” said Punk. “I just chalked it up to “yeah I have a bad back, I wonder how that could have happened.” For the longest time I’ve been doing regularly routine acupuncture, massage, chiro, I bought an inversion table… You name it, any kind of therapy you can do, I was doing it.
“Eventually, it just got even worse and got so bad that I got in one day to roll, I was in my gi, we were drilling, doing triangle chokes… Every time I would get a triangle locked up on me, I’d feel this odd pressure on my hip, so we would aggressively try and find out the problem after that.”
When the issue became too much, and forced Brooks to alter his training regime, they had the issue diagnosed, and received the information the day of Gall’s victory over Jackson.
“I basically just had a herniated disk, and it was pretty herniated,” Punk said. “I don’t know if you want to call it ruptured or whatever, but it was explained to me that the disk was pushing on a nerve and that was pretty much the source of all my troubles.
“I was in with Dana and Lorenzo and we were talking, and Doctor Sanders comes in and says “alright, here it is” and Dana of course lets out this big sigh like ‘ah, we can’t get a break’.”
Despite that, Punk described the UFC reacted wonderfully, and even alluded at how different and better handled it was than when under his previous employers.
As for Punk’s future in the sport, he fully intends to fight, and fully intends to fight this year. On Wednesday, it’ll be six weeks since going under the knife, and Punk hopes to begin boxing this week. Currently, he’s just spending his time attempting to remain in shape as best he can.
“I’ve been biking like a maniac,” Punk said. “I’ve been doing what I can, but I’m not trying to push this one as hard as I can, because it’s your back. Its pretty serious, but I’m staying in shape. I’m not going to put myself into a position where anybody can fall on me, I can get taken down, thrown against the cage or anything like that. [My partners and I] did talk today and it did seems like it’s okay if I started boxing.”
It was too soon to say for Punk to estimate a date, citing his chances of making UFC 200 as around 10%, but did maintain he’d be debuting this year.
When asked if he had any targets for a comeback schedule in mind, Punk mentioned how he didn’t want to give any firm answer, in case people would hold him accountable, but did mention how he had viewed the new legalisation of mixed martial arts in New York with interest.
“In my mind, that card at the Garden would be a nice second fight, but I don’t wanna say things that people are going to be taking to heart” Punk said.
“I know once I fight once I start fighting, I’m gonna wanna stay active. I’m not going to want to be one of these guys who takes months of a time or something. I just want to get the first one out of the way.”
And as always, Brooks had a message for those who doubt him.
“Don’t worry haters, I’m gonna fight and it’s going to be fucking fun and awesome, and you’re going to be upset.”
Want to give your comments about this article? You can either leave them here or you can join us on the Get More Sports Forum and talk about this article and many more! Brag about your favorite team, argue about an athlete’s performance or tell us about a game you saw. Join a new community of sports fans who live and breathe sports and sports entertainment. It’s free! Join now!
