CM Punk Wants His MMA Skills to Do the Talking, but What Will They Say?

"Luck is for losers."

Say this much for CM Punk: He must save a ton on safety nets.

As the former pro wrestling star prepares for his pro MMA debut Saturday at UFC 203, Punk (real name Phil Brooks) is doing so in a headwind partially of his own devising. Insulting Lady Luck was a mere trifle. 

When he steps in Saturday against talented youngster Mickey Gall, it will be Punk's first sanctioned MMA fight, amateur or professional. He will be 37 years old. He will have a history of back and shoulder problems. He will have no combat sports background to speak of.

Oh, and he spent most of his adult life ruling the game (pro wrestling) many MMA fans view as their sport's embarrassing older sibling. In the run-up to his fight with Gall, rather than court those doubters, Punk has made a concerted, if muted, commitment to trolling. (For a great example, check out his deadpanned hot tub descriptions and other things of that ilk in the episode of the UFC's Embedded series wherein he gives a tour of his amazing house. Note: video contains some NSFW language:)

So, yes, there will be a bit of naysaying. Not a lot of soft landing places on the radar for Punk.

Do the naysayers have a point? Punk, for one, isn't going to try to talk them out of that stance. Sure, he's still getting his licks in on the haters, but his days of heavy promotion, of applying that carnival gab gift that earned him celebrity status in the first place, are in the past.

"I don’t see the need for it," Punk said of cutting promos during a UFC 203 media conference call attended by Bleacher Report. "People either love me or hate me already. I’m not trying to talk anybody into the building on this one. I think the allure is just the fact that it’s happening, and the story writes itself. So it’s not a fabricated thing where I need to create some drama between me and Mickey. We’re going to fight. That’s the beauty of it." 

So if the goal is for the fight to do the talking, what, exactly, will his performance say? And perhaps more importantly, what does it need to say for all the CM Punk naysayers to finally get excommunicated to the hinterlands where they purportedly belong?

Punk may not be laying on a hard sell, but he is subtly attempting to redefine this fight and the notion of a CM Punk victory. It should come as no surprise that those terms are his alone.

"I think success is defined by the individual, you know?" Punk said. "I’ve had a successful camp. I’ve had bumps in the road. To me, fighting in the Octagon is a success. I think walking in there is a success."

Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

Here, Punk sets the bar at a height that pointedly, almost brazenly ignores the highest goal: actually winning the fight. It's a good way to set up your ability to claim victory without actually, you know, claiming victory. And that makes sense, given the physical and knowledge deficits at which Punk clearly and knowingly operates in MMA.

There's another definition of success at play here as well, and it involves what we all know is really happening here. No one will be able to read the true metric of Punk's success until several days after UFC 203, when the pay-per-view buy estimates for the event come out. 

None other than Jim Ross, the longtime WWE commentator, said this to MMA Junkie Thursday regarding Punk:

"

I don’t want to say it was a publicity stunt, because that would be inaccurate, but I thought it had a lot of publicity stunt elements to it. You sign a guy, based on his being a major fan of the genre of MMA and being an amateur practitioner of muay thai, being a student of the game, no doubt about that. But, also being 37 years old and never having a fight. So why would they sign him to a three-fight deal, as I recall? Because he brings a great marketing opportunity with him because he has name identity. ...What they’re going to get out of him this week is additional pay-per-view buys they may not have received if Punk was not on the card because we’re talking about him. 

"

Is a big buy number, or just getting in there, truly sufficient to make this a successful night for Punk? In all honesty, it probably is.

Back in 2014, when the Punk signing occurred, the UFC was casting about for stars. It was post-Anderson Silva and post-Georges St-Pierre but pre-Ronda Rousey and pre-Conor McGregor. That, in all likelihood, is what led to an offer to Punk. It was probably a nice offer. All Punk had to do was pick up the phone. That may well be what success looks like, even if the night doesn't technically end with your hand in the air.

No matter what success means or doesn't mean for Punk, inside the cage there's still a fight to win or lose. Punk's injury history reared its head during his MMA training—nearly two years elapsed since he announced his UFC signing to UFC 203—and it could during the fight. How will a man who has had back surgery move around inside the cage? 

As Ross alluded to, Punk has some fighting experience, although it's primarily with jiu-jitsu. Is it possible his grappling game is good enough to earn a submission on the ground? Yes, it is possible.

What's less possible is Punk being able to get Gall to the ground in the first place. The unheralded, 24-year-old Gall (2-0) is a good athlete and a well-rounded fighter who began training in multiple MMA disciplines from a young age—sort of the anti-Punk, if you will. Ergo, Gall has real submission chops and solid standup to boot.

Standup may be a real problem. Training footage released earlier this summer didn't paint the loveliest or most promising of pictures, although Punk said during the recent media call that the footage was filmed while his leg was only "at 15 percent power."

Either way, in short, Punk would appear to be at a marked disadvantage in every phase of the matchup.

To his credit, Punk has been fairly humble about his own skills, often bending over backward to defer to his coaching team at Roufusport, the Milwaukee gym led by former kickboxer Duke Roufus and populated with the likes of former UFC lightweight champ Anthony Pettis and ONE Championship welterweight kingpin Ben Askren, among others. Punk also takes pains to acknowledge that, despite being 37 years old, he is still a novice in MMA.

"I think my aptitude is just absorbing everything," Punk said during the media call. "You know, I got three head coaches pretty much. We got a revolving group of people who’ve been helping me with wrestling and on top of that, you know, I train with killers and champions. It’s a lot to take in but I was a sponge and I am a sponge and I just, you know, to me that’s what it’s all about."

According to sports betting site Odds Shark, on early Friday morning Punk was a significant +300 underdog. But maybe that's not an all-encompassing enough mechanism. Punk, if you agree to grade on something of a curve, already has all the winning he needs.

"I've said it ad nauseam: It’s about the journey," Punk said. "It’s about finding out about different disciplines and learning from everybody from all walks of life, but my mindset I think is probably my biggest tool."

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Scott Harris writes about MMA for Bleacher Report. For more, follow Scott on Twitter.