During an appearance on The Steve Austin Show, UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier was the guest. He talked about both CM Punk and Brock Lesnar. Here are highlights:
On CM Punk: “Phil [Brooks] is a great guy. He’s so smart, a different type of guy. Punk is one of the greatest Money in the Bank briefcase holders of all time. I hear that what he’s doing is he’s going through the team at Roufusport, so he started with the lowest guy on the totem pole. He gets to walk to the octagon, they let him walk, they let him spar three rounds like he’s in a fight, and then they judge it and see how he does. And as he gets better, he progresses to the next guy.”
On Brock Lesnar: “I met Brock Lesnar in 1998. I was in Colby Community College; Brock was wrestling for Bismarck [State] College, and I was like, ‘wow, who is that big biscuit in the heavyweight division winning the national championship?’ It was Brock Lesnar! Then I went to Oklahoma State and he wrestled for Minnesota and I saw this dude at every turn. Then, when I got in the UFC, I saw Brock Lesnar once in California. This was after he went back to WWE. He was in the back with Paul Heyman. No, with Marty, Marty Morgan, and he asked Marty, he goes, ‘is that Cormier? He’s tiny’ and I saw him mouth that I was tiny because I was a heavyweight at the time, but I was like, ‘holy s–t, look at the size of this monster!’”
During the same podcast, Austin responded to the recent comments of Dana White after he called wrestling “fake”. White has been involved in a Twitter war with wrestling fans ever since he made the comments. This was after a fan complained about the price of a UFC PPV compared to subscribing to the WWE Network for $9.99. Austin actually defended White’s comments. He pointed out the difference between MMA and wrestling and said fans should understand the difference in the prices and understand what White meant.
He said: “I know Dana [White] is from the world of boxing and MMA, but I know he respects the world of professional wrestling. I thought that was his way of saying, ‘It’s a work’ [predetermined form of athletic entertainment] because there’s a difference. Is it fake? It’s predetermined. It’s a work! So I don’t think [White] meant any disrespect to the business because I’ll say this, Daniel [Cormier]: I’ll take you, I’ll take Jon Jones, I’ll take the heavyweight champion of the world, I’ll take the bantamweight champion of the world, I’ll take any of you guys who want to go on the road for two years and be on the road for 250 days and go through that grind and you’ll never say ‘fake’, but what you will say, ‘It’s tough as hell!’ Fake, Dana? Not so much. A work? Yes, and I’m not saying that to put Dana on blast because I love him, I love the UFC, and he has always treated me well and always got me tickets when I got to see you fight in [Las] Vegas, so he’s always taken care of me but I think he does respect the business, and, hell, one of his biggest draws [Brock Lesnar] came from the world of pro wrestling.“
