Photos: The evolution CM Punk over time from WWE to MMA

CM Punk, former Ring of Honor and WWE superstar, had recently announced that he will be taking his shot at Mixed Martial Arts in December 2014 following his departure from WWE earlier that year.

With UFC 203 and CM Punk’s debut match against Mickey Gall set for later tonight (Saturday, Sep 10^th), both MMA and WWE fans are looking forward to seeing what will happen when the former pro wrestler steps in the octagon.

Many are speculating that due to the 37-year-old Punk’s lack of experience as an MMA fighter, the match will be a short one but he has been training under Duke Roufus at his Roufusport MMA Academy for almost a year and a lot has changed in that time as can be seen from his photograph now.

Punk has lost a lot of weight and measured at 170 pounds in Friday’s official weigh-in for UFC 203 which is a long way from him being over 200 pounds during his time at WWE.

Punk was asked in a recent interview if the training for his wrestling career had proved to be helpful for MMA to which he replied that for him, working for WWE and MMA are very similar on account of the fact that on both occasions, he has to go out and face a fight whether he wants to or not and that he never backs out of a fight.

In MMA however, the punches will be real and it is to be seen if Punk has been able to master martial arts in the short time since leaving WWE.

UFC president Dana White reacted recently, saying that the CM Punk fight at UFC 203 is not a gimmick when the decision to have an inexperienced fighter debuting on a big PPV card was questioned by fans.

White even mentioned that this is “do or die” for Punk and that they throw their talent “to the wolves” referring to the fact that once the bell goes off, the fight is very real and if they can’t fight back, they will just get beaten up.

It seems that both UFC and Punk himself are very confident of his performance in the Octagon, and only the fans seem to be left in the dark till the Pay Per View commences tonight.