Photo by Michael Sears, Journal Sentinal
This past week, it was announced that former WWE wrestler CM Punk was signed to the organization with no MMA experience. This caused an uproar on Twitter with the mixed martial arts community, including one of the best welterweight’s outside of the UFC, Ben Askren, who tweeted the following, “All you dummies believed @danawhite when he said I need more experience. Then he signs a 0-0 fake wrestler. LOL on you”
Mike “Biggie” Rhodes who not only trains with Askren, but is also coached by him at Team Roufusport thinks the signing of Punk is a “slap in the face” to all those that have worked their way up through the regional rankings.
“I kind of took it as a slap in the face, because a lot of us, pretty much everyone in the UFC had to work their way up there,” Rhodes told MMASucka.com. “They had to go through the smaller shows, deal with the crappy venues, be paid that small amount of money to see if you really love the sport and really climb our way up to the big show. He’s just getting signed based off having a name and being a professional wrestler with something that isn’t real — it’s a fake sport. They’re good athletes, don’t get me wrong, but it’s fake what they do. We fight for real and it’s going to be interesting to see how they match him up. He doesn’t have the credentials, so he’s going to be fed some people to get some wins and I think that’s just going to diminish the sport.”
In December 2013 Askren announced that he had signed a multi-fight deal with Asian MMA promotion ONE FC and placed blame on “immature” Dana White. Fast forward one-year later and Askren is the ONE FC Welterweight Champion, but is still upset that he is not with the UFC.
Rhodes went on to say that Askren will be in the UFC in 2015 and is completely surprised he’s not already.
“I think you will see him in 2015 and if you don’t, the sport is corrupt and I don’t want anything to do with it at that point,” said Rhodes. “That guy should have been in the UFC before me and I’ll say he should have been in the UFC before a lot of the guys at welterweight, he’ll beat them all — including me. I think it’s crazy that he’s not in there already.”
