CM Punk
The UFC has always been billed as the sport’s ultimate proving ground, where the best-of-the-best come to compete, but signing of pro-wrestling superstar CM Punk to the promotion in 2014 made a mockery of that.
By that stage Brock Lesnar had already successfully crossed over from the WWE to the Octagon and even became a champion, but he had a solid background as an amateur wrestler and was a freak athlete.
On the other hand, Punk was best known for his personality rather than his athletic ability and had no background in combat sports other than having trained sporadically in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with Rener Gracie, who admitted that the pro-wrestler was “still very new” to the sport.
However, despite a backlash against his signing, he was given two years to train behind closed doors before finally making his debut in 2016.
The UFC’s gamble didn’t pay off however as Punk delivered a comically bad performance against the 2-0 Mickey Gall in his debut that would see him taken down almost instantly and then tapped out mid-way through the first round.
Remarkably, he was given a second chance after that and after almost two more years of training later he returned to fight the 0-1 Mike Jackson and put in another woeful display en-route to a unanimous decision defeat.
