When in need of a friendly word from a colleague, Nate Diaz would not be the first name that jumps to mind.
Both Diaz brothers have something of a bad-boy reputation but when it comes to the fight game, they tend to offer up a lot of respect to any man or woman game enough to step foot in the octagon in order to test their skills against an opponent.
CM Punk has copped flak from all angles ever since he signed with the UFC in 2014, mainly due to the fact that he was fast-tracked into an opportunity that has evaded plenty of fighters who had been training in MMA a lot longer than the former WWE superstar.
Current fighters came out in droves to criticise the fact that a debutant was given a slot on a UFC pay-per-view card and one such competitor was Nate Diaz, who said that the signing of CM Punk (real name Phil Brooks) was “horrible for the sport”.
But, after consulting with friends Gilbert Melendez and Ronda Rousey, Diaz realised the error of his ways and issued an apology to Punk during an autograph signing in the summer.
“UFC 200 I was doing an autograph signing and the guy I was signing the autograph for started like pointing behind me and I heard someone like yelling my name and I turned around and I was on a riser and Nate Diaz was on the ground and he was like ‘hey man come here’,” Punk told FOX Sports recently. “I was like ‘what’s up?’ and he was the nicest fucking guy.
“I don’t know if he’ll get mad and this will ruin the image of Nate Diaz, but he was like ‘hey man, I talked some shit before and I don’t know you and I’m sorry’ and he’s like, ‘Gilbert [Melendez] and Ronda [Rousey] said that you’re a cool dude and they love you’ and I started looking around for the cameras. I was like all right. I thought that was super, super cool of him. Super nice guy.”
Punk, after almost two years of training under Duke Roufus at his Roufusport academy in Milwaukee, will fight this month at UFC 203 against 2-0 welterweight Mickey Gall.
He is a considerable underdog for his mixed martial arts debut but Punk believes in the work he’s put in and is hoping to upset the odds.
“My expectations are to win,” Punk told MMA Junkie. “Go out there, whether it goes three rounds, whether it goes three seconds, that’s what I expect.
“I expect to show up in the best shape of my life, happiest I’ve ever been, and happy looking in the mirror before the fight knowing, job well done.”
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