Former WWE superstar turned UFC fighter CM Punk took part in a media conference earlier today in Cleveland, Ohio following an open workout in anticipation of his UFC debut against Mickey Gall at UFC 203 this Saturday night.

Punk said that it is poetic that his first UFC fight happens to be in the same building that he quit the WWE in back in January 2014 and said that it was a breaking point in both sides, it was something that needed to happen and that it needed to happen dramatically. Punk said that he knows the Quicken Loans Arena so well from wrestling there several times and that he feels right at home.

Punk said that he does expect to have butterflies and nerves before his debut fight and that he looks forward to experiencing that again after losing that feeling at the end of his WWE run stating that there was a long time that before he would go through a curtain, he would just sit there and be like, yeah, they’re not coming (the nerves), they’re gone and they were gone for a long time, but now he’s glad that they’re back.

Punk then commented on the WWE travel schedule to doing a full fight camp in preparation for his fight at UFC 203 and said that travelling sucks and he just got burnt out on it, where as when he is doing the UFC training, he is able to go home at the end of the day, be around his own family and sleep in his own bed. Punk said that he predicts he will be victorious, stating that he is confident in his pre-fight training and that he is not over-scouting Mickey Gall to where he is thinking too much or paralyzing himself inside the cage and added that he looks forward to fighting again after Saturday, saying that he is in this for the long haul.

In regards to Punk being allowed to fight in Ohio, Punk shot back on individuals that he described as “hack journalists” who brought up his license status stating that they lead people to believe that they are worried about his well-being, but they are not and that they are hack journalists who f*****g want to stir up a bunch of s*** for no reason because they do not get invited to this.

Video of Punk at the pre-fight media conference is below: