Roufusport's Belal Muhammad: ‘People Are Gonna Be Surprised’ by CM Punk’s Performance

CM Punk's sophomore Octagon appearance is drawing near, as he prepares to face Mike Jackson on the UFC 225 pay-per-view main card on June 9.

Belal Muhammad, who trains with Punk at Roufusport and will step into the cage approximately one week prior against Chance Rencountre at UFC Fight Night 131 on Friday, expects the former pro wrestling star to look a lot better than he did in his promotional debut.

“He’s working really hard. He’s improved a lot. I think people are gonna be really surprised about the show he’s gonna put on,” Muhammad told Sherdog.com. “Not a lot of people are giving him respect after his first fight. But as you can see, Mickey Gall wasn’t no joke. He went out there and he beat Sage Northcutt pretty easily.”

Indeed, Gall appears to be a decent prospect, even after suffering his first career loss to Randy Brown at UFC 217. Still, he was a difficult style matchup for Punk, and he showed that in scoring a relatively easy submission victory 2:14 into the first round.

Jackson, on the other hand, sports an identical 0-1 professional mark, and he fell to Gall even faster (45 seconds) than did Punk. Jackson does have more combat sports experience, however, as he was a Golden Gloves champion boxer and has professional experience in both boxing and kickboxing. Still, Muhammad believes Punk will get to showcase more of his MMA skills in this particular matchup.

I feel like it’s gonna be more of a test for him, the right-sized test,” Muhammaed said. “Gall was an undefeated kid and he was a brown belt. Mike Jackson is kind of like the same level as him, so it’ll be a good test for him to go out there and put on a show.”