UFC 203: CM Punk's car-crash MMA debut

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  • Miocic mauling: Stipe Miocic retained his UFC Heavyweight belt by knocking out top contender Alistair Overeem.

    UFC 203 will go down as an anomaly in the promotion’s history. It was certainly one of the most peculiar as bizarre circumstances underpinned what was, in the end, an entertaining maiden voyage to Cleveland for the UFC.

    First, there was the out-of-place MMA debut for a former WWE star as CM Punk predictably looked out of his depth.

    Then, there was the sight of Fabricio Werdum landing a flying sidekick to Travis Browne’s chin three seconds after the opening bell before the fight descended into pure parody. Browne unilaterally stopped the bout due to a broken finger and referee Gary Copeland wrongly obliged.

    And to top it off, Werdum then front kicked Browne’s head coach Edmond Tarverdyan after the decision was rendered.

    The strangeness did not stop there either as the main event had its own odd occurrences, too.

    Heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, in front of his fervent home support, was flattened early in the first round by Alistair Overeem, who then himself was knocked out before going on to wrongly claim post-fight he actually won the fight due to a phantom Miocic tap to a guillotine choke.

    Yes, weird just about sums it up. In equal measure, though, it was absorbing. When CM Punk emerged to Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” for his first ever MMA fight against talented prospect Mickey Gall, the debate as to whether he deserved to be there in the first place dissipated and left in its place was curiosity – a first for a fight between two men with two total bouts.

    Punk is sunk: A defeated CM Punk.

    When the action began, though, the interest subsided. Punk was immediately taken down and in under two minutes, Gall had the 37-year-old tapping to a rear-naked choke – a brutal reminder that the UFC is not the place to be ticking off goals for your bucket list.

    Punk, though, intends to fight on and if he does, then it should be in the amateur ranks.

    “My initial venture into this was gonna be at the lowest level,” Punk said at the post-fight press conference. “This opportunity just got presented to myself and I would have been a fool to say no. I don’t know what happens from here on out. What if I get cut? I don’t know. I think that’s a possibility. Do I want that to happen? No. But who’s to say where I go from here? I don’t know. I definitely want to keep going.”

    At the opposite end of the spectrum, Miocic knows exactly where he is heading and it’s into a title defence against one of the best heavyweights of all time in Cain Velasquez.

    The Cleveland native successfully defended the belt he captured at UFC 198 and although it was clear he had won, the fight was marred by the confusion of Overeem’s accusation of a tap. There’s only one thing Miocic remembers, though.

    “I just remember signing my cheque and all that good stuff, and I heard boos,” he said. “I asked what they (the crowd) were booing about because I knew he (Overeem) was talking, and they told me that he said that I tapped out. I don’t remember tapping out, I just remember punching his face repeatedly until he was unconscious.”

    In the other odd occurrence of the night, Werdum recovered from losing the belt to Miocic in May to grind out a unanimous decision victory over Browne. The fight, save for the first three seconds, was a sleeper but it exploded when Tarverdyan confronted the Brazilian who in turn push kicked the cornerman away from danger.

    “I just keep my distance, I don’t want to kick him, I just keep the distance, you know, he’s a boxing coach, and I see in his eyes he wants to punch my face,” Werdum said. “He comes first. He says a lot of things, a lot of bad things.”

    Cooler heads prevailed and the trouble dispersed but it all added to a strange night in the UFC.

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