Alistair Overeem and CM Punk have two marquee fights set for UFC 203 and Overeem has some words for the former WWE Champion.
Overeem spoke about CM Punk at a media conference, which is viewable in the video above, and understood why the UFC is allowing Punk to fight, despite having no MMA experience. He compared Punk's situation to when Brock Lesnar made a similar transition from WWE to the UFC.
"I totally understand and realize you need to have these ‘show’ fights to kind of boost the sport," Overeem said. "Brock came from the WWE, I think it was great for the sport, he’s a big guy, I enjoyed watching his fights. So the same for CM Punk. He’s getting a lot of attention, but I think it’s not going to be in his favor. His division welterweight, that’s a very hard division. To me he’s making a mistake. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. He’s talking about 'I want to test myself’ and this and that' — well, he’s going to be tested."
The former Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion said that while he admires Punk's willingness to test himself, he believes that at some point, Punk will quit.
"Two things are going to happen, either he's going to lose and quit or he's going to win and he's going to lose later on and quit," Overeem said. "For him to think he can just do this for fun and test himself to see and I do have to respect that testing himself, I am at the same time hoping for the upset. Because we all love the upset, I hope he's going to do great but at the end of the day we're going to find out what CM Punk is made of."
Overeem will challenge Stipe Miocic for the UFC Heavyweight Championship at UFC 203 on September 10. Punk will make his UFC debut when he faces Mickey Gall on that show as well. Fightful will have complete coverage of UFC 203.
