UFC President Dana White has announced the following on Twitter:

Dana White        ✔ @danawhite
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Welcome to the UFC @CMPunk! #UFC #WWE http://instagram.com/p/wSl-5sPAws/ 
10:32 PM - 6 Dec 2014

During tonight’s preliminary card at UFC 181, CM Punk joined Joe Rogan on commentary and revealed he had signed a deal with the MMA promotion. Punk had the following to say:

“I have a limited window like all fighters do, and I’m here for a fight. This is my new career, 100%,” Punk told Rogan in an interview.

“I have respect for everyone who fights in the UFC, and by the time I’m done, they’ll respect me.” Punk added he’ll likely be competing at middleweight or welterweight, but light heavyweight is completely out of the question.

If Punk gets knocked out in his first fight in the first round...I will die of laughter.

I'm happy for him

I am kinda split on how I should feel. Seeing someone knock Punk the fuck out would be awesome. On the other hand if he was able to kick ass in the UFC it would make the wrestling bashing MMA fans angry that a guy from something that is "fake" own their fighters.

Wasn't it CM Punk who said that Ryback took 20 years off his life or was that a different Punk? And if that's the case then why is he attempting to go into a sport that's even more dangerous?

Yeah, I guess him playing the "victim, where money isn't everything" is out the window. But this should be interesting.

I don't think UFC is "even more dangerous" than pro wrestling.

Everything is dangerous when not done / performed properly. Wrestling, MMA, ballet...

I'm curious to see how he's gonna get along over there now.

The average fight is more dangerous than the average wrestling match but that's not how that shit works. True comparison is, what's more dangerous: 6 months of wrestling matches, and in WWE, that's about 100-120, or 1 fight. It's the wrestling. If you get injured at all that six months compounds everything. You get no time off. If you get hurt and can't fight you get time to heal. If you break a rib wrestling you work for the next six months on it.

Then, the referees in WWE are in on the performance and do not aid wrestlers when they're seriously hurt in the match, as is the opposite of the UFC.

In total I think fighting a maximum of 6 rounds per year, 30 minutes of fighting for a guy like Punk, is far less dangerous than doing 200 matches a year, or logging anywhere from 2000 to 4000 minutes in the ring, regardless of your health standing.

How is MMA not as dangerous as wrestling? The shit in their is real & he's probably going to get fucked up.

^there* And wrestling is real too. You know, live performances? Real People? It's not cartoons. What I think you mean is "UFC is not scripted whereas Professional Wrestling is".

But basically, what KevIan said. Someone that has 6 performances a year (for example), is more likely to remain healthy/safe than someone that performs 3 times a week, travels all around the world on a tight schedule, does public/advertising appearences hundreds of times per year.

Remember they'd do RAW on Mondays, Smackdown on Fridays, at the very least. 8 to 13 shows per month (2 shows per week = 8 if a 4 week month, 13 shows per month is a 5 week month + PPV), not even counting with house shows.

As for UFC being "more real"... the danger is the same, except they know they're going "at it", thus they try to control themselves, whereas in wrestling they know they're going to be performing stunts and entretain a crowd, so they want to make it as flashy as possible. If a blown spot happens, Injuries may happen along.

n is a number


The function of severe injury in WWE:

n matches * probability of n number of injuries (wI) * probability of n number of reinjuries (wRI) * probability number of travel sicknesses or injuries created by the travel schedule (wOI) * probability of a severe training injury (TI)


The function of severe injury in UFC:

n fights * probability of n number of injuries (uI) * probability of n reinjuries (uRI) * probability number of travel sicknesses or injuries created by the travel schedule (wOI) * probability of a severe training injury (TI)


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Let's assume we follow a basic schedule model.

200 matches * [[(wI)*(wRI)] + (wOI) + (TI)]

2 Fights * [[(uI)*(uRI)] * (uOI) * (TI)]

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Now we can break this into four parts:

How likely is severe injury in a UFC fight compared to a WWE match?

How likely is a severe injury to be reinjured? How likely is a normal injury to become a severe injury through re-injury or improper healing time?

What is the impact on the difference in schedules in terms of impacting probability of injury?

How likely is training for a match or fight to create or alter the probability of severe injury?

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Surely a severe injury is more likely in a fight than in a wrestling match, but is it 100 times more likely?

The UFC takes reinjury seriously. Cain Valesquez was just pulled from UFC 180 with a knee injury. It's unclear what knee injury it was, but I know guys get pulled from fights with injuries that a WWE worker would work on. Re-injury in the UFC is an in-fight only proposition, and the probability of that happening is low because most severe injuries would stop the fight. In the WWE, it's far more likely.

WWE wrestlers are far more likely to develop serious injuries based on their schedule. They have to travel across the world in a culture of working hurt and self-medicating to get through. Nutrition in the WWE is incredibly difficult whereas it's a part of training in the UFC.

Getting injured in training is far more likely in the UFC. However, when you suffer an injury in training, you get full recovery time and can't possibly hit the two fight schedule. Thus, the only way a training injury can increase the probability of injury is if it's more likely to get hurt in training than it is to get hurt in a fight, which would prove my point and make the exercise pointless. (If that's the case, physically strenuous activity is more likely to injury you than a fight when the rate is something like 100:1)

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Let's assume the training camps UFC fighters undergo before fights are exactly as dangerous as the WWE schedule over the same period. The listed training camp length before a fight is 8-12 weeks. Let's take the average.

20 weeks of training and 2 fights vs a full WWE schedule

or

2 fights vs 123 matches

... but reinjury and other injuries are more likely than the WWE because of the difference in culture and company structure.

So our final model looks something like...

1 fight * probability of severe injury

61.5 matches * probability of severe injury * probability of reinjury * difference in probability of other injuries

Is the probability of severe injury really 61.5 times more likely in a fight vs a match? Is it really so much more than 61.5 times more likely that the other factors in the WWE which help to inflate the likelihood of injury?


For Punk, the likelihood of injury is unlikely to be related to his skill as a fighter. Even if we say he's a terrible fighter, the worst in UFC history, he's very unlikely to suffer a severe injury. He's far more likely to take a TKO loss or lose in a submission like Lesnar. If you think of all the key injuries you can remember in the UFC, most of them are elite fighters. Anderson Silva, Antonio Nogeira... Severe injuries aside from brain injuries are more likely to happen to elite fighters because severe injuries happen as a last resort or are a random walk.

Assuming the goal of the fighter is to win and the fighter isn't an idiot, Punk's opponent will always pursue the easiest way to win which will be a TKO win or a submission, neither of which are likely to cause an injury unless Punk refuses to tap out, which is unlikely to happen because the utility of him continuing a fight he's been embarrassed in is almost nothing.

It really comes down to... What is the probability of Punk getting knocked out, what is the probability of that being a serious head injury... and what is the probability of him being hurt working a full time WWE schedule?

I think it's probably something like 3% to 40%, but obviously the variables are unknown.

Closest comparison you can make is Batista.

Punk trained significantly longer and will be in a more favorable weight class for not suffering severe injuries (Batista was a heavyweight)

Punk will be with higher skilled fighters (UFC vs random fighter) which will actually greatly improve his likelihood of injury because the fighters are more likely to look for an easy way to win vs throwing bombs

and Batista wasn't injured fighting ... but did suffer severe injuries in the WWE.

Ian knows his shit.

I wonder how many fights he'll have? I wonder what the pay is?

The pay for the fights will be somewhat low unless he signed a deal that includes a percentage of PPV buys (Which isn't out of the question.)

Pay from the fight will probably be minimal. Maybe $20,000.
If he gets a 5% PPV buy deal he could make $300,000 on 100K PPV buys. That's an incredibly low estimate as far as money from PPV buys IMO.

Punk will make the majority of his money through sponsorships which I'm sure will line up to promote him.

He'll fight once or twice. If it goes well he'll fight three times before the end of 2016. I don't know how many fights he signed up for but if it's more than 2 or 3 I'd be surprised. Punk would want a minimum number so he could renegotiate and he wouldn't sign a deal that fucked him on money.

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Punk should have no problem making $500,000 for his first fight through sponsorships and PPV buys.

He best pull a Sakuraba and have his fighting style announced as pro wrestling.

UFC and other MMA companies are pretty much turning into or are already like wrestling companies.

You have people cutting promos, you got guys acting like heel assholes (when they aren't like that in real life), fucking Bellator had a segment with a guy hiding under a mask only to be shown as Tito's ex-best friend.

UFC business is way down from when Brock was there. Brock was the greatest draw in the history of the sport.

Punk I doubt will draw as big as Brock did. I'm sure he will get good numbers, but no where near brock's level.

Punk doesn't have to worry about head trauma.....all it takes is a bone snap to be out for a year....

someone is going to target the ribs

He'll have over a full year off before he fights. He'll go into the fight healthy.