CM Punk Returns

There’s a moment every longtime fan reaches when they look at the thing they love and ask if they still recognize it. After the UFC White House card, that moment has arrived. The fights delivered — Gaethje upset Topuria, Gane stopped Pereira — but the political pageantry, the post-fight comments from fighters like Josh Hokit, and the sense that the brand has swallowed the fighters left a taste that’s hard to wash out. We trace the lost era of respect embodied by Georges St-Pierre, Lyoto Machida, and Demian Maia, the Conor McGregor effect that rewired the culture, the risk of going “mainstream, mainstream,” and what the future of MMA coverage looks like on the Ringside Report Network as the weekly show retools.