Other than the referee and Mickey Gall, very few people were as close to the octagon as longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan was when the former professional wrestler known as CM Punk made his professional MMA debut. Although Punk came up short and was submitted in just over two minutes by Gall, that does not mean that Rogan did not have some advice to offer the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion, which he offered at the UFC 203 Post-Fight Press Conference.
"I admire CM Punk for taking the chance, I really do…But, it was delusional. That's my feeling, it was my feeling watching him hit the bag, when I was watching him punch things. It's not like he can't ever learn, but there's a journey as a martial artist. There's a path that each martial artist is on and different people are on different paths. There's a reason why brown belts don't compete with white belts in jiu-jitsu tournaments. It's not fair, and what we saw tonight was not fair. Mickey Gall's way better, he's really good.”
"This is what happens when you take a guy who's an elite young kid [Gall] and you have him fight a celebrity who wants to challenge himself, it's not the way to do it... If I had to give CM Punk advice, I'd say, fight as an amateur, fight people at your level. I mean, he wants to do this, he wants to continue, God bless him, he's a fun guy, I like him. But this is not the way to do it."
Whether Punk returns to fight in the UFC or heads elsewhere remains to be seen, but Rogan seems to have some pretty good advice for the wrestling star.
