Professional wrestling and mixed martial arts are usually two worlds best left separate. When it was revealed that Phil Brooks, better known by his wrestling name “CM Punk” had signed with the Ultimate Fighting Championship fans and fighters alike were left scratching their heads.
With the exception of some jiu-jitsu training during his days off from the wrestling ring, Punk had not undergone much training for his professional fighting debut in the premier fight organization. Some fans gave him a chance when it was revealed that his opponent was Mickey Gall, a relative newcomer to the professional mixed martial arts scene. But still, Gall had proven himself in the octagon once before and was a legitimate fighter.
When Punk was taken down and submitted with ease at “UFC 203”, fighters laughed it off on social media while others commended him for getting in their in the first place. Fight purses were revealed for that card and while it was disclosed Punk got paid $500,000, nobody knew just how much Punk truly got paid for his debut in total until his wife AJ Lee recently let the cat out of the bag in a recent interview with Sam Roberts and Jim Norton. She told them:
“Yeah, [he handled the loss well]. There’s probably, um, I don’t think it hurt that for one night of working you get paid a million dollars. Like, he was pretty psyched about that.”
Whether or not Punk received the seven-figure payday before or after pay-per-view numbers came in remains to be seen. However, the fact that Punk got paid at least $1,000,000 for two minutes of fighting isn’t too shabby for a former pro wrestler!
