During an interview with The Philly Voice to promote Tuesday’s SmackDown Live, Daniel Bryan spoke about CM Punk getting wrecked at UFC 203 this past weekend.
“I have the utmost respect for him trying to go do it.”
Bryan shed some light on their friendship, explaining they’ve never been best friends and he’s not even sure if he’s got Punk’s number in his phone. However he did watch the fight and he was pulling for Punk. “I was really hoping he would win,” Bryan said. “The reality is that even though he lost, he was dead on in his promo afterwards. It’s the whole thing with me and him, and guys like Sami Zayn and Neville even trying to wrestle. Right? It’s just this idea of you have this dream that everybody tells you that you can’t do, but you just keep going after it. Sometimes, you’re not successful, right? He wasn’t “successful” in the fight. But he fought a professional fight in UFC. That’s crazy! You know? It’s crazy and it’s awesome and he may have lost and he may have gotten beat up, but hey, he tried it.”
Bryan is no stranger to martial arts. He trains trains in jiu jitsu and muay thai and most of the people who he trains with would never attempt fighting professionally. At 37 years old, CM Punk was on the older side to be getting into the fight game. Bryan says that adds even more to the respectability of what Punk attempted.
“At that age, and I know at my age and how many injuries I have, just getting up out of bed every morning, you know, for the most part, I feel really good. But then to get up and go train with killers – that camp is a great camp. And so you go in there and train with great guys and getting beat up every day. It’s tough. That’s the job. The job is getting beat up every day. And right towards the fight, then you have to lose a bunch of weight. So, it’s like, ‘OK I get beat up every day, now go lose 15 pounds. Oh, just like that? Oh, OK.’”