Dana White discusses signing of CM Punk: “I’ll give him the shot”

Following the announcement last night during UFC 181 that CM Punk will be joining the UFC roster, UFC President Dana White spoke about why he chose to give Punk, real name Phil Brooks, a shot in the UFC, and why even he is skeptical of his newest fighter.

“He comes to all the fights, he’s a huge fan. Once his deal was up with the WWE, he called me and he said ‘I would really like to fight in the UFC.’ I told him ‘you’ve got no fights.’ But he wants to try it and obviously the guy is a huge superstar. I’ll give him the shot. I’d say I agree with every one of the things people are saying. Yeah, of course, I’m absolutely skeptical. Who knows? You don’t know unless you try. You don’t know if the guy can fight unless he fights. He wants to fight here. He’s like ‘I’m at an age where I don’t have time to go work on my game and work my way up to the UFC. I’d like to start here, I’d like to give it a shot if you would give me that opportunity.’ I said ‘yes, I will.’ I don’t know (when his debut will be). What did he say? I think what he wants to do is take his time, start training, get with the right camp. It could be six or seven months.”