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It’s been a long, hard road for CM Punk to get to his MMA debut. It’s been more than 18 months since he signed with UFC and he’s yet to have his first bout. There have been injury concerns, worry about his ability to hold up in a fight and now scheduling issues.

A few weeks ago, it seemed like we were finally getting the big match: CM Punk vs. Mickey Gall was going to take place the night before SummerSlam at UFC 202, a WWE/UFC faux-cross-promotional weekend of real and fake fighting. I’d originally imagined the trade-off for WWE letting UFC use Lesnar was that they could use footage of Punk getting the brakes beat off of him on the Titantron to troll him the next night on SummerSlam. But those plans have fallen through, and it looks like Punk’s first fight is getting moved to UFC 203 on September 10th.

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Current plan at the moment is CM Punk vs. Mickey Gall at UFC 203, per sources. Far from a done deal but that's the direction as of this AM. — Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) June 21, 2016





There’s no word on exactly why Punk’s fight is getting pushed back but he is coming off of some health issues that have pushed things back. This has been one of the most long-awaited debuts ever and the longer it takes the more build-up there will be for the bout. Only time will tell if it will be worth the wait or if this will be one of the biggest duds ever.