If Michael Jackson wins his professional debut he’ll have secured a fight against CM Punk in the UFC.
Now that’s a sentence nobody could have predicted would be uttered up until relatively recently.
However, if Mike Jackson, a fight photographer with a 0-0 professional record, defeats 1-0 Mickey Gall at UFC Fight Night 82, he will be issued with the task of welcoming the former WWE superstar to not only the promotion, but the sport of MMA.
Jackson revealed to MMA Fighting that he was completely befuddled when he was offered the Gall fight by Legacy FC matchmaker Collin Cantrell. Initially, he thought he was being asked to carry out his day job.
“In my head I’m thinking, ‘Y’all gonna fly me to Minnesota to come take pictures of Mickey Gall?'”
“I was like, ‘Fight who?’ He’s like, ‘If you fight Mickey Gall, you get CM Punk.’ That’s how they’re hyping this up to me. I was like, ‘This makes no sense. What are you talking about?'”
Jackson only has one MMA fight under his belt, an amateur fight he lost in 2012. He has some experience in kickboxing and boxing, holding a 2-0 pro boxing record and also being a former Golden Gloves champion boxer. He’s fully aware that the fact that his first professional MMA fight will come in the big leagues is ridiculous, he’s not sugarcoating it.
“To me, this is a big troll. This is a massive troll by everyone involved here.”
“You have CM Punk, who has no MMA experience, fighting. You got this kid Mickey Gall, who literally wins one fight — he’s fighting in some small town in Jersey that Dana White happened to be at and was like, ‘I want to fight CM Punk.’ And he gets signed by the UFC. And then you got me. All my experience is in boxing and kickboxing. Now I’m in the UFC. It’s like, ‘What the fuck is going on here?'”
However, he’s aware that this type of chance doesn’t come around too often, and he’s relishing the opportunity of fighting on MMA’s biggest stage.
“I can’t turn this fucking opportunity of a lifetime. How many people with no fights have fought in the UFC? I was like, ‘OK, let’s do it.'”
