In addition to his UFC debut, it sounds like CM Punk had another rough shoot-fight experience. The story of Punk’s unsuccessful Restaurant MMA debut come from WCW/TNA backstage man Bill Behrens, who visited Hannibal TV to talk the old days and seemingly wonder publicly why Punk was still trying this fight business thing.
According to Behrens, Teddy Hart took down Punk Mickey Gall-style while a bunch of TNA wrestlers were at dinner. Sabu ran in, possibly pointed to the sky, and broke it up.
“It was like a really bad UFC fight in that… all of a sudden to the left, there’s a fight that has literally just started. From the very beginning, it was takedown by Teddy, Punk down, and Teddy’s just destroying him. I think Sabu was walking up with this, but regardless Sabu ran in and got Teddy to focus on him. He broke for Sabu, so Sabu did the save for Punk on that particular one.”
“The whole thing, if it lasted more than 20 seconds I’d be surprised. It was short, Punk had no offense and was just covering up. He also wasn’t badly scarred out of it either because Teddy was pulled off pretty quickly, it wasn’t like it lasted a long time. But there was no chance, at least from what we were seeing, that Punk was going to get much of a comeback out of it.”
It’s a pretty simple story, but it’s an example that’s supporting Behrens’ next point: if Punk fights in the UFC again, he’s probably going to lose. “It was one of the strangest things, Punk going into MMA,” Behrens explained. “I could see a healthy Daniel Bryan going into MMA, that would make sense to me. But Punk was never really that guy, at least not in my impression.”
To be fair, Teddy Hart likely went through years of getting stretched by his grandpa Stu in the Hart Family Dungeon and studied the takedown. Punk, however, was lost, relying primarily on his Muay Thai for most Dinner MMA scenarios.
(Via 411Mania)
