Former WWE star CM Punk signed with the UFC in December of 2014. He didn’t fight at all in 2015 because of a shoulder injury, but was scheduled to make his debut this summer against Mickey Gall. But that debut will be pushed back even further because of a herniated disc in his back that will require surgery, according to MMAFighting.
“My back has always bugged me,” Punk told MMAFighting.com. “Figured it was just wrestling sh*t. Turns out it was.
“It got bad enough to the point where I couldn’t do anything the week before I went to train with the New Jersey Devils last month. One day I could manage, the next day I couldn’t. I’ve been in agony for almost a month. Chiropractor, acupuncture, massage, cryotherapy … nothing worked.”
MMAFighting also reports that the surgery won’t push Punk’s expected debut back too far – the recovery from the surgery is only expected to take four to six weeks, and the surgery is the same one that knocked Cain Velasquez out of his title fight with Fabricio Werdum this past weekend.
The Velasquez-Werdum fight hasn’t been rebooked, but it won’t be taking place in March or April because the main events and co-main events for both UFC 196 (dos Anjors-McGregor and Holm-Tate) and 197 (Cormier-Jones and Johnson-Cejudo) have been announced.
It shouldn’t exactly come as a shock that Punk is dealing with injuries – at 37, he’s not exactly a spring chicken. And every time he suffers an injury and sees his debut get pushed back, one has to wonder simply how brief his MMA career will be.