CM Punk has told ufc.com that he's still hoping to fight his first UFC fight in December. This is somewhat of a surprise, as his coach Duke Roufus had previously talked about wanting Punk to complete a fully year of training first. That would have put the former WWE star's UFC debut around summer of 2016. But Punk believes he'll be ready to go in December, one year on from the announcement that he'd signed with the MMA promotion. "I say this all the time: I'd love to fight tomorrow," he told UFC.com. "But I want to be as prepared as I possibly can be and I will be. I'm still shooting for December. It might be January. I'm not sure, but I'll be ready when I fight." "I don't ask my coaches, 'How did I do today? Am I ready?' They say, 'Come back at 7' and I come back at 7. They tell me to mop, I mop. They tell me to sweep, I sweep. If they tell me to work the mitts or come in and work extra, I do it." Of course, UFC will probably match him up with another first time fighter, so it isn't as if Punk needs to be the complete fighter just yet. UFC will try to make it an easy fight for Punk, who they hope will bring over some pay per view buys from the WWE. Purist MMA fans will hate the fact that such a rookie is walking straight on to a UFC pay per view card, and let's face it, the fight probably won't be very good. Punk will be 37 years old and with less than a year of MMA training to his name, it's going to be very amateur. But UFC are smart to get this fight booked sooner rather than later. They signed Punk based on his name, and the value of that is constantly going down while he's out of the spotlight. It has been eighteen months since he last appeared in the WWE. He's been spotted this week at UFC International Fight Week in Las Vegas, appearing on camera at the Invicta show.
