Boston Celtics announcer and Bellator play-by-play man Sean Grande recently spoke with Justin Barrasso for the Five Questions part of Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard‘s Week In Wrestling while promoting this weekend’s big Bellator 170 event. You can read a few highlights below:
Sean Grande says CM Punk would make a good fit with Bellator, and reveals which Wrestlemania Punk should have main evented with Daniel Bryan:
I fully admit bias on this one. I’ve been a fan [of Punk] for many years and I’ve known him for about five. But he’s absolutely on the somewhat long list of UFC fighters I think would be better served in Bellator. The great Cris Cyborg is another, the Diaz brothers certainly belong back “home” with Scott Coker. But biased or not, there was true irony in Punk ending up with the UFC, when all the free agents coming to Bellator have talked about the freedom they now enjoy to be themselves, the respect they get from the promotion/Spike/Viacom, when you consider the issues that led him to leave WWE in the first place.
I’d have to think back on it, but it seems like WrestleMania 28 was the perfect spot for Punk to headline. Rock-Cena I, and Punk-Bryan for the title was the perfect co-main event, right? If the idea was to have something for everyone, that was the way to do it. It hasn’t even been six years, but I think people already forget how organically hot Punk got in the summer of 2011 off the “shoot” promo. I’m not a Reigns-hater in any way, but when you look at how many chances he’s gotten, you can just imagine how big that long Punk title run could’ve been with just a little more behind it.
Grande reveals his fantasy choice for which professional wrestler he’d bring in to fight Bobby Lashley for Bellator:
Well, that’s a pretty easy one, right? There’s no doubt the money fight is Lashley and Brock Lesnar. But if you had control over time and space, the answer could be a little more intriguing. Last year I asked Kurt Angle if the landscape had been different in 1998, if MMA had been 10 percent as big then as it is now… he didn’t even let me finish the question. He absolutely would have gone MMA. So my real choice, would probably be, say, 2001 Kurt Angle, before the toll pro wrestling put on his body. But hey, let’s not forget the historical importance of Bobby Lashley, by the way. If he loses at WrestleMania 22, and it’s not Vince that loses his hair, but the other guy has to shave his head? Our world right now might be a very different place.
