UFC on Fox 1 Helping To Make Heavyweight MMA History

Columns, Features

Tonight was a historic night for MMA and the UFC. With the biggest fight possible on Fox, marking the UFC’s debut on network television, all eyes were on Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos as they fought for the UFC Heavyweight title. But two pairs of eyes were on them much more intently than most: Alistair Overeem and Brock Lesnar. It’s not an easy task to take on either fighter, obviously, but now we’re seeing something historic coming out of all of this besides the final path to the mainstream for the UFC.

Lesnar and Overeem are scheduled to headline UFC 141, and the winner going on to comprise the other half of a title fight this spring, tonight’s fight had plenty of implications for the UFC heavyweight title picture. The bottom line coming out of all of this is that we are seeing seemingly unprecedented in MMA history. Something we haven’t seen before in Pride, not in the early days of the UFC and not even up until this point of UFC dominance of the MMA landscape.

The best four heavyweights on the planet are going to have fought a mini-tournament of sorts to establish the undisputed best heavyweight in the world.

We’ve never had this in MMA history. For as much as it was seemingly undisputed that the best heavyweight in the world was Fedor Emelianenko during the glory days of Pride, the best heavyweights in the world weren’t all in that promotion. You could’ve made a case for someone like Randy Couture or Tim Sylvia back then, albeit a very tough one at best, but the debate still raged on. Pride never pulled this off, either, and the UFC has never had enough of the best talent to truly pull it off until this point in history.

While fans can argue amongst each other that both Lesnar and Overeem could be considered overrated, the bottom line is that both have been high profile champions and defeated some of the best in the division. Lesnar holds a win over a prime Couture and Shane Carwin while Overeem is coming off a big win over Fabricio Werdum. Both men share the same traits as Dos Santos and Velasquez in being remarkable athletes in other sports on top of being great MMA fighters as well.

Lesnar’s amateur wrestling credentials are fairly substantial, winning an NCAA title and finishing second to freestyle world champion Stephen Neal after two junior college All-American campaigns. A freak of an athlete, Lesnar made it to the final cuts of a strong Minnesota Vikings team despite a torn groin and not having played the sport since high school.

Overeem has similar credentials in the realm of kickboxing. He holds wins over K-1 legends Badr Hari and Peter Aerts and is the reigning K-1 World Grand Prix champion, not an easy feat in any aspect and much more difficult in that he has knocked both guys out. Overeem is a man who was a light heavyweight mainstay of Pride in MMA as well, having fought in both kickboxing and MMA over the past couple years before signing on to the UFC exclusively earlier this year.

When the dust is settled, this spring should crown the UFC heavyweight champion and the undisputed #1 heavyweight in the world. And it’ll be the first time in MMA history we’ll know who that is. There’ll be no debates, no discussions and the man holding onto the UFC heavyweight title will be the best in the world. That’s historic.