The return of Phil “CM Punk” Brooks is practically upon us. It’s been two years since we saw the ex-professional wrestler make his ‘intriguing’ debut at UFC 203 in Cleveland, Ohio. Unfortunately for CM Punk, it went about as poorly as it possibly could have.

Charging straightforward at his opponent, Mickey Gall, CM Punk would get taken down almost immediately and lose the fight via first-round submission by way of rear naked choke without ever landing a single punch.

Now ready to give it another go next week at UFC 225 in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois, CM Punk will be facing off against a fellow 0-1 mixed martial artist in Mike Jackson. Jackson was actually the man that Gall defeated in his UFC debut to ‘earn’ the fight with CM Punk.

With the lengthy gap between fights to continue to work on CM Punk’s skills, his training partner at Roufusport, Belal Muhammad believes that people will be surprised by how much he’s improved as he told Sherdog.

“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. 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.

I feel like it’s gonna be more of a test for him, the right-sized test. 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.”

Muhammad, a very solid fighter in his own right, holds a 13-2 professional record and currently rides a three-fight win streak. He will be competing this Friday at UFC Utica when he takes on Chance Recountre.

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/30/2018.