In case you haven’t been following along, Phil Brooks and Tim Tebow are two athletes who have received a lot of hate in recent weeks from the esteemed, omnipresent moral arbiters of such online communities as reddit and the ESPN comments section. Their crime? Seeking to branch out from the sport that made them famous to one that they might be levying said fame to compete in professionally. Obviously, both men have committed unforgivable offenses in doing so that question the very integrity of the UFC and the NFL, two organizations that had nothing short of sterling reputations beforehand. At least, so sayeth the majority of their detractors.
And as luck would have it, it turns out that the man formerly (and sometimes currently) known as CM Punk is a big Tebow fan. On the eve of his put-up or shut-up bout against Mickey Gall at UFC 203, Brooks was quick to congratulate the former Heisman winner when informed of his recent signing to the New York Mets, saying, “Good for him. I think that’s great. That’s awesome.”
When pressed further by MMAFighting’s Helwani (via TMZ) if he saw any “symmetry” between himself and Tebow, Brooks was expectedly candid.
Yeah, maybe. The people who don’t like me are going to point out that ‘Oh, Punk wasn’t a professional athlete’ so that’s a whole different can of worms. But yeah, I think there’s a lot of symmetry. You go from one … I’m debating whether to call it a sport or not [because] everything I say gets clickbaited … yeah, you go from one sport to another and there’s parallels.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. “CM PUNK THINKS HE’S THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF MMA AND PROBABLY THE JOSEPH STALIN OF JIU JITSU. Details at 11.”
It’s like Michael Jordan, who went from playing basketball to playing baseball. ‘Oh baseball’s too hard, he’s not gonna be able to do it.’ I’m awkward and I’m uncoordinated and I’m old and I’m fat and I’m lazy and I suck and I was a fake athlete and I’m not going to be able to do it … if you believe all that stuff then you’re not going to be able to do it. I’m sure Tim Tebow can hit a ball. I think that’s great.
You hear that, guys? “CM PUNK THINKS BASEBALL PLAYERS ARE BIG DUMMIES WHO CAN ONLY HIT A BALL.”
Me rn counting your clicks.
All kidding aside, I’m personally finding it harder and harder to really disagree (or at least cause that much of a fuss over) Punk’s viewpoint on this whole situation. While I’m sure that most of his and Tebow’s critics would turn down a six figure payday in the blink of an eye if it meant betraying the trust of their fans, I don’t really see a problem with either guy giving it a go in another sport just for the f*ck of it. I played the baritone in 4th grade, for instance, and would like to think that if I become famous enough, I’d be able to leverage that into a regular gig with the New York Philharmonic if I so desired. Not because I earned it, but because I COULD.
The fact is that the most qualified person for the job is rarely the one who gets it, and if you think I’m lying, look no further than our current political situation. To quote the Wu Tang Clan, “cash rules everything around us,” and there’s no denying that CM Punk and Tebow will be bringing some always-welcome eyes to their respective sports. It’s a win-win for everyone except the dopes who still wax on about the “purity of the game” while spilling mustard from their $12 ballpark weenie onto their $95 replica jersey. “Sport” went by the wayside long ago. All that’s left is “entertainment.”
