Steve Cofield is the editor of the great Cagewriter blog over at Yahoo, and he nails the real truth behind the Lesnar story in this post:
White and Lesnar said they had it out, and the big guy got yelled at. Let’s hope White made it clear what he was angry about. Because stuff like Lesnar calling for more boos, beating Mir with the horseshoe he removed from his [expletive] and even celebrating by “getting on” his wife, was pure brilliance. There’s wasn’t a person who walked away from the arena, closed circuit or pay-per-view broadcast who didn’t have some rush of emotion and an opinion on Lesnar. That is great for the business and great for MMA. Telling Lesnar to tone it down is not.
To hear media members act like Lesnar has just snapped a puppy’s neck on live television, is comical. It appearted that one prominent ESPN writer was ready to cry during the postfight when he got into an argument over Lesnar’s antics. It’s all part of the show. And the fact that it made even a veteran reporter angry, means Lesnar and his “craziness” is great for MMA.
The “veteran reporter” that Cofield is referring to would be Franklin McNeil of the Star Ledger and ESPN, who was beside himself with anguish after UFC 100 and said that Lesnar had “killed the sport for good” with his post-fight promo. Obviously that’s a silly reaction and the polar opposite of what the promo actually was, but it also shines a light on something that we’re just starting to understand: a lot of the media members who cover this sport have no idea what it actually is, and they are completely out of touch with what made it so popular in the first place.
