After footage was released showing CM Punk hitting pads, Irish UFC contender Cathal Pendred thought of a way to use that footage to “take the piss” out of himself. As a result, one of the better “Twitter Wars” in recent memory broke out between himself and the former WWE Superstar. Because of that, we could have our first legitimate contender to be the guy to welcome Punk to the Octagon.
Pendred recently spoke with Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com and explained why he feels he is in the “pole position” to get the Punk fight after their recent, public beef.
“I didn’t even call him out last week,” Pendred told Helwani. “I put out a tweet with a short clip of him hitting pads, and I didn’t use his Twitter handle or tag him in it or anything. I just put the video up. And you know me, as the Irish say, I’m always having a little bit of ‘craic.’ I was actually more wrecking the piss out of myself than I was CM Punk. Everyone knows my stand-up hasn’t looked too beautiful since my UFC career started. And I just said, look at this guy, he makes me look like Muhammad Ali hitting the pads. So, I was actually just insulting myself in a half-hearted way.”
It has been said that the “CM” in CM Punk stands for “Chicago Made.” It has also been rumored that it stands for “Chick Magnet.” Apparently Pendred is only familiar with the latter version.
“The day that he got signed by the UFC I said the Chick Magnet fight was a lottery ticket,” he said. “He is the lottery ticket. I think every fighter should want that fight that’s in the UFC. There’s a lot of money to be made, and I’m one of the guys that’s on his division, so I definitely wouldn’t turn it down.”
Pendred continued, “I actually think that I’m in the pole position for it now because, nearly every guy in middleweight and welterweight has called the guy out, and he hasn’t responded to any of them. I was having a great time with it to be honest, I thought it was brilliant. That just makes me think that maybe this guy is delusional, as some of the fans that he has, and actually thinks that he could beat me in a fight.”
Pendred elaborated on the fact that he feels Punk responded to him because he thinks he is someone he can beat in his UFC debut.
“I genuinely feel like he’s responding to me just because he feels that he might have a shot, or else he feels like he could maybe at least not die in there with me,” he said. “I’ve seen in a lot of his interviews since he joined [the UFC], he looks more scared now than he did — I think he looks more unsure of himself now than he did when he first decided to do this. I think he’s in the gym now and he’s having a hard time and he’s realized, I bit off more than I can chew now. I reckon he thinks Pendred is the way to go, and if that’s the way he wants to go, there’s a couple of hundred thousand reasons I think it will be the way to go, too.”
“My striking has looked atrocious in the UFC so far, and that’s the type of guy I am,” he said. “I have no problem ripping it out of myself. But [CM Punk’s footage] made me look good. I’ve seen boxercise classes where people were hitting the pads better than that.”
