5 Reasons why CM Punk deserves respect despite not being your 'average MMA' fighter

#4… at the age of 38

Age never held him back

Yes, to start anew at the age of 38, when your body isn’t keeping up with you quite as well as it did in your 20s, commands nothing but appreciation. Punk, at the age where most men of his stature are looking at real estate, podcasts, television appearances and the likes; is roughing it out in mixed martial arts gyms, trying to perfect combination punches and roundhouse kicks. Conor McGregor, who is in his prime, is 29 years old!

Let’s not take away the fact that the UFC is a ‘cash-cow’, but someone with the credentials of Punk doesn’t need to necessarily commit himself to getting kicked and punched for “a few dollars more”!

When people are slowing down in life, the sharp-tongue iconoclast is going in exactly the opposite way and taking up something alien as a challenge. The odds were stacked massively against Punk in competing in the oeuvre of mixed martial arts and he didn’t get everything served on a silver platter.

He didn’t have the repertoire and the talent for UFC, but he definitely worked hard to hear “Cult of personality” escorting him to his first appearance inside the octagon.