Former UFC and PRIDE star Gary “Big Daddy” Goodridge was recently interviewed by the folks at Hannibal TV and shared his candid view on the Octagon debut of former WWE Superstar CM Punk.
“You know what, I thought the UFC was just playing around with wrestling,” said Goodridge, who competed in the “Pioneer Era” of MMA. “Because wrestling has a big following, you know? I didn’t even know that until Brock [Lesnar] brought me up to this one here. I had no idea they had so many fans, so I thought UFC was playing with him a little bit. I think they’re probably going to stop now because CM Punk sucked ass.”
Goodridge continued, giving his breakdown on Punk’s loss to Mickey Gall, who fights Sage Northcutt this evening in the co-main event of the UFC On FOX 22 card from Sacramento, California.
“What happens when you fight — it’s quite different from professional wrestling — what happens when you fight sometimes you go out there and your brain just blanks. It’s a place you never want to go, and me I was always afraid of going out there and you just go blank. He trained for two years, and he goes out there and just goes blank, I mean he just lost everything. The hip and the hype got ahold of him. Many people say ‘Oh he’s a professional athlete it should of never got ahold of him’ but still, fighting for your life and fighting for showing up for a game, just playing — fighting and dancing are two different things. So when you go out there and you actually fight somebody, I can see how his mind went blank.”
“So yeah, I think he learned a lot but he didn’t have time to play. He needed to go out there and go easy into it, rather than (makes smashing movements with hands). That’s what happened to him. He needed to just go out there and jab, relax, then fight. He didn’t have that, so I think he squashed himself. Take your time, take some low-class match stuff, not fighting somebody like that right away. Relax, take your time.”
