You're Gonna Miss CM Punk When He's Gone

Remember that goofy song with the cups that swept the nation a few years ago?

The delightful Anna Kendrick was at the helm of the whole thing, surprising people with her vocal chops and displaying them over, of all things, a bunch of cups played as musical instruments. How'd it go?

Ah, yes:

When I'm gone
When I'm gone
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone
You're gonna miss me by my hair
You're gonna miss me everywhere, oh
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

Quite a thing, that song. Really took off.

And it could well be time for a CM Punk cover by the time his UFC 225 fight with Mike Jackson is over on June 9.

Punk, real name Phil Brooks, is the owner of a story told a million times by now. He was a professional wrestler and then he quit to pursue his dream of fighting in the UFC despite having no athletic pedigree or competitive martial arts background of any kind.

The UFC, an entity that never met a dollar it didn't like, snapped him up in late 2014 and booked him in a bout at UFC 203 against Mickey Gall, an unknown who, it turns out, was an absolute animal.

Predictably, it didn't go well for Punk.

Incidentally, that meant it did go well for his haters.

Trashed enthusiastically by many from the day he signed to the day Gall throttled him live on pay-per-view, Punk was often scorned relentlessly by the MMA community for even trying.

How dare he?

How dare he think he could simply walk into this sport of kings and sully it by competing as a plebeian?

But everyone watched, and instead of cutting him for his admittedly pathetic showing, the UFC doubled down. It didn't love what it saw, but it liked seeing the financial needle move enough that Punk remained under contract and with a chance at another fight.

He gets it against Jackson, who is also 0-1 as an MMA fighter and was also unceremoniously throttled by Gall in his UFC debut.

So that lines up.

And again—though perhaps less vocally than the first time given that the world saw him get his perceived comeuppance—people have opinions about Punk.

The fight will happen in his hometown of Chicago, where he will surely be over with the crowd and performing as a massive face, to steal some parlance from his former profession.

Outside of Chicago, there will be a mix of those attracted to the sheer occult of his second foray into unscripted combat and those who will deride the man for trying to right the wrongs of his debut instead of simply going home for good.

Whoever they are and whatever their reasons for tuning in to Punk's fight, they will have opinions and they will surely share them. His odyssey has consistently provided for such fodder.

But on the flip side is the harsh reality that he's a man of nearly 40 with a hard lifetime of professional wrestling having taxed his body. His will or interest or whatever else it is one believes has inspired him to try MMA late in his sporting life won't carry him much further.

There are, in fact, already rumblings he might be heading back to pro wrestling in 2018. You may never see him in the UFC again after that, win or lose against Jackson.

And while many will joyfully cluck their tongues and cheer his departure, the fact remains that Punk is a personality in a sport increasingly devoid of them. His story in MMA is fascinating, even if it has been unsurprisingly harsh on him.

Whether cheering him on or lobbing insults from the darkest parts of the internet, people care about him.

So enjoy him while you can because, oh, you're gonna miss him when he's gone.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!