Saturday July 3, 2010 was the night that Brock Lesnar officially became a star in the world of mixed martial-arts.
Many people would respond to that by saying that Lesnar has always been a star in MMA. Incorrect, he’s been a big draw for MMA since he signed with UFC and thanks to what UFC is able to do for its fighters in terms of getting them notoriety and exposure, he was already an established MMA mainstay in many people’s minds before his first UFC fight. This was a nice facade that did play to people who only watch UFC. The reality was that he was new to the game and was always improving, but wasn’t the unbeatable monster everybody has perceived him as even after he tapped out to Frank Mir in February 2008. This past Saturday saw Lesnar return to the cage after a fifty-one week absence due mostly to a battle with diverticulitis that some close to him said nearly killed him. This return was capped with a second round submission of Shane Carwin to once again unify the UFC heavyweight title.
I say this was the night that Lesnar became a star because this was the night that any notion that Lesnar was unproven (one I held because of the distance between his push through the media and the reality of his brief MMA career) were permanently eliminated in my mind. Not only did Lesnar face real adversity in the cage for the first time in his MMA career, but he fought through it and won in style.
More importantly in my eyes was his conduct in victory. Last year, he acted pretty typical for what I was expecting out of the guy. That night winning wasn’t good enough as Lesnar proceeded to bash a couple of the sponsors, talk about banging his wife, and refute his detractors (there weren’t many of those going into the Mir fight). This past Saturday, my initial reaction while watching the post-fight press conference with Brock was, “who are you and what did you do with Brock Lesnar?” The more I watched, the more I realized that this is a guy who may have really made a change in his personality and conduct. He was humble, but not hangdog humble, he was professional, his candor was great, and if a near-death experience was what it took to produce this kind of a change, then that is the silver lining that came out of those terrible couple of months in Lesnar’s life.
Before I go on, I’m going to explain my position on Brock Lesnar to anybody who has either never read my wrestling or MMA column, or just don’t get where I’ve been coming from these last couple of years. Last year, after the Mir fight, I wrote, “…to those, including Dana White, who said that this was unexpected and they didn’t see it coming, I have only one question: you are aware that Brock Lesnar had a previous career in pro wrestling right?” There’s a clue, but here it is: my beef with Brock Lesnar had to do with his exit from both pro wrestling promotions that he was involved with and with the fact that this guy had a bandwagon for him in MMA before he had even proven himself in the sport. I can still remember reading about Lesnar telling Vince he was leaving right after a SmackDown! taping prior to Wrestlemania XX on which Paul Heyman—Lesnar’s storyline manager—did a pretty good promo backstage about Lesnar being the locker room leader and the workhorse of the promotion, etc. And then there was Wrestlemania XX where both he and Goldberg dogged it mainly because Lesnar let the fans get to him so easily it was pitiful (fast forward five years to the second Mir fight and what changed?).
Then after his experiment with the NFL didn’t go quite as planned, Lesnar winds up as the umpteenth attempt by New Japan Pro Wrestling during the period of 2001-2005 to make either a foreign wrestler or MMA fighter an instant star; they did this by having Lesnar win the IWGP title (their world title) in his first match with the promotion. Lesnar proceeded to dog it in the ring for his nine months as champion and when told to job the belt for a homegrown talent’s first title win, he literally walks out of the promotion, AND DOESN’T GIVE THE BELT BACK! That IWGP belt would be with Lesnar for the next year until he “lost” it to Kurt Angle in a match that was another huge disappointment considering who was involved. Now, I will concede that a lot of the blame goes to Vince McMahon and Simon Inoki for providing the best examples of “too much too quick” in pro wrestling in the past decade; Lesnar’s first WWE title run came five months after his TV debut, compared to The Rock and Steve Austin’s first world title runs coming nearly two years after each debuted on WWE TV. However, the way Lesnar paid back those pushes, especially with New Japan since they really could’ve used the Brock Lesnar in the ring that WWE got, had me writing that I was done with Brock Lesnar. I maintained that opinion since the IWGP title incident (July 2006 in case you’re wondering) and have been pissed at the hype more than at Lesnar himself during his run in UFC so far in the very same way that I had nothing against Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson the man, but had everything in the world against the notion that this guy was an actual MMA fighter before he even had an MMA fight. I’ve always prided myself as someone who can give credit where credit is due no matter who the person is, so I would like to proclaim that I am willing to give Brock Lesnar a second chance as his performance in the cage Saturday night and his behavior, demeanor, and professionalism post-fight and at the press conference gave me the impression that not only is this guy committed to become a great fighter and not just a big draw, but this is a guy who is still hungry and that seemed to be something that has been missing since his experiment with the NFL.
Now with that out of the way (hopefully for good), let’s get back to the fight. First thing’s first, should the fight have been stopped in the first? NO! Absolutely not. The first big barrage from Carwin had some great strikes, but Carwin gassed out less than two minutes into the fight and during that first barrage at that. Rosenthal was on top of things and you could actually hear him tell Brock that if he didn’t do something he was going to stop it. So what did Brock do? He got his hands out from in front of his face and started to defend aggressively. In reality, Carwin was exposed in those first two and a half minutes and had nothing left when the first round was in the books.
Next, is Brock Lesnar the best heavyweight in the world? No. As I’ve already mentioned, the guy has improved more and more in each fight, but I do believe that the best heavyweight on the planet at this moment is the man Lesnar will be defending his title against next, Cain Velasquez. Cain’s knockout power and power in general is undeniable at this point. Not only that, but Velasquez hasn’t been close to losing yet and that alone puts him at least slightly above Brock who has one career loss and nearly lost Saturday night. And while I believe Dos Santos is the most complete heavyweight in UFC, Lesnar is now someone I can hear people say is top dog and best heavyweight, etc. and not feel insulted as an MMA fan that someone with only six career fights is so highly praised. The main reason I’m still not gaga for the guy like so many are is that I have enough foresight to see what this guy is still capable of. To see what this guy could be doing to guys two or three years from now is scary. So if you think that Brock Lesnar is the absolute shit and is an absolute killer, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Finally, I’d like to address the death of Michael Kirkham in South Carolina as a result of injuries sustained in an MMA fight. Unlike Huffington Post readers (or writers) ever attempted to do, a little research was needed when the second in-ring or in-cage death in American MMA history occurs. Here are the facts: Kirkham was a so-so amateur fighter with a 3-3 amateur record according to Dave Meltzer, he was 6’9″ at 155 pounds (how messed up is that?) and didn’t receive any blows or strikes that are uncommon in any MMA fight. That is the sad truth behind this death. And again, the sport has been around in America for seventeen years and this is only the second death to take place, so for the onslaught of “this needs to be banned” and “this is overly brutal and barbaric” and the comparisons to Roman gladiator fights are overblown and a load of shit. My childhood was full of watching boxing on HBO, but I’m smart enough to know that boxing is much, much more dangerous than MMA. Boxing is all punching; in MMA there is ground work, there is kicking to the body, kicking to the legs, and submissions; and that’s if you want to look at the sport simplistically. The last two fights of UFC 116 are great examples of how MMA is more than just pounding a guy’s face into mush. Lesnar was punched a lot in round one, but how did he (you know the new smashing machine, the monster of MMA, etc.) beat Carwin: he took him to the ground and submitted him. And how did Chris Leben achieve his sudden win over Yoshihiro Akiyama? By scoring a sudden and shocking knockout or TKO? No, by being able to latch on a triangle choke on him in the final thirty seconds of the fight.
If there is anything that can be learned conclusively from Kirkham’s death and UFC 116 a week later, it is this: there is more to MMA than just punching a guy in the face. To make a successful go at it in this sport you have to have a more complete game and be more than just a puncher. If you have a great punch and good chin that’s great, but it will only get you so far. If you have even a decent knowledge in the other areas of the game, there’s no telling how far you can go.
