Many have came out and said CM Punk should take a year or more time to better learn MMA before she makes his debut, including Punk himself, but his coach feels differently.
Duke Roufus has been very outspoken about his relationship with Brooks and his skill set.
The cool thing is I know Phil on a personal level and I know what type of person he is and I’ve known him a few years. He has a unique background, his mindset and who he is. I’m excited to work with him. Knowing the type of person he is, I think he is going to surprise some people.
I like the challenge and I’m up for it to help him achieve…Even me as a kid when I said I wanted to be a world champion, people thought I was crazy. ‘He’ll never do that.’ Well, four titles later, here I am. I’m a firm believer in the power of positive thinking and asserting yourself to your goals….is it going to be tough? Yeah, but I didn’t get involved with this because I didn’t think he could do it. I think he can. That is the thing, he is going to fight guys in the UFC at his level, too.
The competition at Roufus Sport will be what makes Punk’s learning curve shorter than most new fighters.
He is going to get exposed working with the world-class guys, but he is also going to get exposed to newer guys, too. That is the key to what we have going on is you have some high-level guys working together and you can experiment a lot with newer guys and use them as quality sparring partners to get your confidence better.
We are going to take it step by step. What I don’t want to do is put him in there too fast and ruin his confidence. Confidence is everything in the fight business and that is what I am going to do: build his confidence. I have a huge resource of great coaches, great teammates and great students. I have a lot of longtime students who know how to properly spar with people that will bring him along well. I’m going to do a lot of sparring, myself, with Phil, just because I have the experience of control. I’ve been in martial arts since I was four, I have such control that I can help him learn the sport and not get hurt at the same time.
I’m sure everyone can’t wait to finally see the debut of CM Punk in the UFC. In the video Punk says he will choose an opponent in 6 months, that can’t come soon enough.
