Opinion: The Cult of Perspicacity

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.* * * It was over 21 months ago, UFC 181 to be exact — the same night Robbie Lawler took the UFC welterweight championship from Johny Hendricks in a rematch of their 2014 “Fight of the Year” nine months prior — that the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced it had signed former World Wrestling Entertainment star “CM Punk” Phil Brooks. In that moment, reactions in the mixed martial arts sphere ranged from eye rolls to moderate curiosity. On the one hand, Brooks was a banged-up former pro-wrestler well on the wrong side of 35 years old, with no chance of ever doing anything relevant in the Octagon. On the other hand, there’s always a bit of morbid intrigue when any wrassler decides to try his hand at real fighting.That was December 2014. Zuffa didn’t schedule Brooks’ debut right off the bat, instead giving him more time to train at Roufusport in Milwaukee and get comfortable. Then came the multiple postponements as the shopworn Punk dealt with shoulder and recurring back injuries. While the UFC bought time by hyping its “Dana White Lookin’ For a Fight” series, having the UFC boss pluck 1-0 Mickey Gall out of Philadelphia’s Dead Serious MMA after his pro debut, then giving him a rote showcase fight against Mike Jackson in the UFC this past February to firm up his status as “the guy who will fight CM Punk one day.” It was like strange nesting dolls, embedding a miniature reality show within a larger, more lunatic reality show. The hope was for Brooks to fight Gall at UFC 199 this past June, but Brooks’ back surgery pushed his debut date back even a bit further. In early February, right around the time Gall dominated Jackson and Brooks went under the knife, now-UFC middleweight champ Michael Bisping went on SiriusXM Radio and claimed that at Roufusport, Brooks had fought 16 smoker-style bouts in the gym and lost 15 of them. At this point, the public narrative around Brooks’ Octagon ambitions changed almost instantly. With just one classic flap of Michael Bisping’s lips, CM Punk’s MMA odyssey went from a drab and pointless reality show to a surreal drama. Before Bisping decided to put Brooks on blast, most MMA folks copped a “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude. Brooks turns 38 in October, had been beset by injuries and was a complete novice with no practical combat training that would give him a leg up in MMA; the “CM Punk has been undefeated in the UFC for X days” meme seemed to grow and flourish as a result of the doubts he’d ever actually fight despite it being a constant source of hype and conversation. But all of a sudden, Brooks actually had a real opponent waiting in the wings and Bisping’s rumor mongering introduced …

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