Mickey Gall extended his hand for a shake, and CM Punk walked right through it.
The two men had an intense staredown during UFC 203 weigh-ins Friday in Cleveland and that's where it started, with CM Punk refusing to shake Gall's hand. Gall then started jawing at Punk, saying things the audio did not pick up.
On the FS1 weigh-in show, CM Punk was asked by interview Megan Olivi what Gall said and why didn't he accept the handshake.
"I don't know," Punk said. "He was stuttering. He kept repeating, ‘Oh you don't want to shake my hand, you don't want to shake my hand' or something like that. I'm not here to shake anybody's hand. I'm here to punch people in the face."
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This is CM Punk's UFC and MMA debut. The popular former WWE headliner had little to no significant martial arts experience before signing with the UFC in December 2014, but has been working at Roufusport in Milwaukee for about a year and a half. Punk, 37, believes he has improved a lot since first walking in the door. Gall himself is only 2-0 as a pro.
"I think once I had an opponent, once I had a date and once I was free of that damn herniated disc I was walking around with for who knows how long, I was a different person," said Punk, whose real name is Phil Brooks. "It's one thing to train, it's another thing to train with a singular purpose and that's what I got in Mickey Gall. I know this is a difficult sport to master. I look forward to mastering it sometime and I realize that will probably never happen, but I will get as good as I possibly can."
Punk expressed some exasperation with his weight cut this week, but it seemed like he might have just been trolling MMA fans. He weighed in officially Friday morning right on the nose at 170 pounds. Punk said cutting weight was not fun, but he had coach Duke Roufus and teammates like Anthony Pettis and Erik Koch for advice.
"I'm not gonna say it was easy," Punk said. "There's a level of difficulty that goes along with it and I'm a fat kid at heart and I love food and that's obviously the hardest part."
All that's left now is for him to step in the Octagon for the first time.
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