Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar at UFC 91

September 7, 2008:
By now you’ve all heard that Randy Couture is coming off a year-long hiatus to defend his heavyweight title against Brock Lesnar at UFC 91. Apparently, a lot of people aren’t happy with this matchup. It probably has something to do with the fact that Brock has a grand total of 1 win in the UFC and is already getting a title shot. You can debate the UFC’s decision all you want but in the end you have to accept the fact that this was almost the only option for them. Mir and Nogueira are already set to fight for the interim belt in December. Fedor, Randy’s dream opponent is locked into a contract with Affliction. With that being said, I think the only suitable opponent for him would be Fabricio Werdum. All the other heavyweights don’t have enough cache right now or are just too green…speaking of which, how about that Lesnar guy? He’s one of the least experienced fighters in the entire company. However he’s also practically a household name and that’s more than I can say for Werdum. So, the UFC is in the business of making money (what else does a business strive to do?) and thus they’re going with the bigger name. At least we won’t have any more illusions about the UFC’s matchmaking politics!

Now, let’s take a look at who should be the odds on favorite heading into this fight. To do this, I think it would be useful to look at each fighter’s past two fights and how relevant they are today.

March 2007 - Couture vs. Sylvia: Randy topples the lumbering giant. If it was any fighter other than Captain America this would have been considered a modest decision victory. However, since Randy Couture was in his mid 40’s and coming out of retirement it was considered a big deal. Still, Tim Sylvia looked terrible in that fight and is on nobody’s top 10 list today.

August 2007 - Couture vs. Gonzaga: The old man does it again. I think this victory is much more relevant to Randy’s current standing. Gonzaga had a ton of moment coming off his knockout of Mirko Crocop and Randy stopped him dead in his tracks. Sadly, Randy Couture spent the next year in the courtroom. Come Nov. 15 he will have gone 15 months without fighting.

February 2008 - Lesnar vs. Mir: Brock forgets a leg. Sigh. I still can’t believe to this day that Brock lost this fight. I think Brock and C.B. Dalloway should go for beers one day. Anyway, Brock Lesnar was pounding the hell out of Mir until he made a rookie mistake and got caught in a knee bar. Given that this was his UFC debut I don’t think you can be too hard on him. After all, he looked great until…he lost.

August 2008 - Lesnar vs. Herring: Brock rides tall in the saddle. Plus, he looked like a doofus waving an imaginary lasso above him before the fight even ended. But…that’s our Brock! I’ve said before that this man is a polarizing figure and damn I think that’s an understatement. Anyway, in this fight Brock dominated Heath from start to finish while taking virtually no damage. In fact, the only thing you could fault Lesnar on was not finishing Herring but considering he got a title shot out of it I don’t think he cares.

What I take most from this analysis is the fact that at this point in time, despite his lack of experience in the UFC, Brock Lesnar seems like the bigger threat. He has the advantage in size, youth and possibly even speed. I think if Randy had been the one to fight Brock Lesnar in his UFC debut I’d be looking at this fight a lot differently. As it stands, I think Randy’s going to have to pull several rabbits out of a hat in order to win this one. Having said that, if Randy does win it won’t be the first time I’ve made a wrong main event prediction.

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