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Mike Jackson Calls Out CM Punk, Wants To Be His Second UFC Opponent

By Aaron Sass
Published on: 04:09 PST, Sep 23, 2016

After CM Punk was completely dismantled by Mickey Gall at UFC 203, UFC president Dana White told Fox Sports that Punk’s next fight “probably shouldn’t be in the UFC.” Now, the UFC president may reconsider his stance on Punk in the UFC, as it looks like the ex-WWE Champ added, at least, an extra 175,000 buys to a show that UFC fans, for the most part, weren’t all that interested in. So Punk is clearly a big draw.

In recent years, the UFC hasn’t exactly been known for doing “freakshow” fights. Sure, they allowed James Toney to step inside the Octagon without having any pro MMA experience, but he was a very accomplished professional boxer beforehand, so there was some concern that he could step inside the Octagon and knock someone out. But he didn’t, and he was cut from the organization after just one fight.

While the UFC may be interested in promoting one more CM Punk fight, it would be hard to justify bringing him back to an organization that is supposed to showcase the best fighters in the world, and the former WWE star clearly isn’t a world class fighter. But you know who also isn’t a world class fighter? Mike Jackson, and he wants to be Punk’s next opponent.

Jackson was used as the setup man for Mickey Gall to get to CM Punk this past February. Gall finished Jackson in the very first round via submission. It was Jackson’s very first MMA fight, and beforehand, he had only one amateur MMA fight, which he lost via unanimous decision.

On a recent edition of MMA Junkie Radio, Jackson tried to sell the idea that he should be Punk’s next opponent, and that their fight should be in the UFC.

“I’ve gotten wind that Punk wants to get another fight, and it only makes sense. The experience is the same. We both have a loss to Mickey Gall. He can’t go in there and fight dudes with a lot of experience, as opposed to bringing in someone else with very limited MMA experience. It only makes sense to put us both in there.”

Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has suggested that this fight shouldn’t be on pay-per-view, saying that the UFC should air the fight for free on one of their Fox shows. But now that Punk is a proven pay-per-view draw in the UFC world, his next fight probably won’t be on Fox.

If the UFC does decide to let Punk go, he’ll almost certainly end up signing with Bellator, who could bring in Mike Jackson as his opponent. Everybody knows that Bellator doesn’t have a problem promoting “freakshow” fights, which is why everyone is predicting that Punk will end up there if the UFC cuts him.

Punk is already back in the gym training, so he’ll probably try to push to fight again before the end of the year.

Jackson didn’t exactly say when he’ll be ready to fight, but if the UFC called him and told him to be ready before the end of the year, he’d probably make that happen.

If Punk goes to Bellator, then he may end up fighting in November, which is the same card where former UFC middleweight contender Chael Sonnen will be making his long awaited MMA return against UFC Hall of Famer Tito Ortiz. Bellator is hoping that their November card will be their biggest card of the year, and having Sonnen, Ortiz, and Punk all fight on that card would, in fact, make it a must-see event.

Now that Mike Jackson has officially called out CM Punk, it’s probably safe to say that the two men will fight each other at some point before the end of the year. Will it be in the UFC? We’ll probably know the answer to that question soon, because if the UFC is planning on cutting the former WWE star, they probably won’t wait much longer to do it.

[Featured Image by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images]

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