CM Punk Promises To Fight Mickey Gall In 2016
CM Punk, who was set to make his UFC debut against Mickey Gall in either June or July, had his MMA plans put on hold after he recently underwent surgery to repair a herniated disc in his neck. His post-surgery recovery is expected to be four-to-six weeks.
Punk said Monday on The MMA Hour his doctors told him before the UFC Fight Night 82 event that featured Mickey Gall vs. Michael Jackson that he would have to undergo surgery and that he felt bad for pulling out of the fight.
“I felt like sh*t about it. I wanted to tell everybody, but it was also a case of let’s just see where this goes and see what happens. I got the MRI Friday night, and I was literally diagnosed Saturday, right before I walked out to watch Mickey and Michael Jackson fight.”
“(They handled it) wonderfully, in my opinion,” Punk said. “I was in with Dana and Lorenzo, and we were talking, and Dr. Sanders just came up, and he goes, ‘alright, here it is.’ He laid it all on the table for us. Of course, Dana lets out this big sigh, and he’s like, ‘ugh, we can’t get a break.’ So immediately I go into, ‘well, maybe there’s a shot I can get? Maybe I can do cortisone? Whatever.’ And Lorenzo and Dana stop me, and they went, ‘no, no, no, it is what it is. We just want you to get fixed and get healthy. We have shows every month, don’t worry about it.’
“It’s just, the timing sucked. I’m literally about to walk out and do this thing (at UFC Fight Night 82). And they were great. It’s hard not to compare and contrast to where I used to work before. It was just a relief to finally have a boss who was like, ‘no, no, just get fixed, we want you 100-percent, we want you to be healthy,’ not interested in throwing a band-aid on a bullet wound just to parade me out in front of people. So it was a relief, and it felt nice.”
When asked when he’ll fight next? Punk isn’t sure on an exact date but knows that it will be in 2016.
“I don’t know,” Punk said. “Part of me, I’ve learned from my past mistakes, and I’m not going to say a date that everyone’s going to get married to, and then I’m going to have to hear about how I’m never going to fight. I’m going to fight. It’s going to be this year. And like I said, I see the [doctor] tomorrow, and I’m going to talk with him about all kinds of other extracurricular things I can do to probably speed this along. See if I can start doing acupuncture again, things like that. In my mind, that card at [Madison Square] Garden (in November) would be a nice second fight, but I don’t know how realistic that is, because again, I don’t want to say things that people are going to be taking to heart.”
He signed with the UFC in December of 2014.
