UFC 100 Thoughts - Brock Lesnar

No question in who the man is now.

At UFC 100, Brock Lesnar got a decisive victory against Frank Mir. So why is he so darn upset? Some people say he’s only the champion because of his size. It’s true that there are not many heavyweights that have to cut weight in order to make the 265 pound limit. However there’s more than meets the eye to the Next Big Thing.

Tim Sylvia is the only other heavyweight that comes to mind who is comparable in size to Brock Lesnar. However the similarities between the two fighters stop there. First off, Tim is no where near the athlete that Brock is. Sylvia’s hobbling around the octagon has been described as Ogre-ish, at best. He used his ability to keep his opponents at bay due to his modest stand-up ability and long reach. It’s also been said (most notably by Randy Couture) that Tim’s success as champion was due to the then-weak heavyweight division.

Well, it seems that the more things change the more they stay the same. We once again have an over-sized champion that towers over the rest of the division. Sylvia and Lesnar aren’t as different as we’d like to believe. So, what was the point I was trying to make? It’s that styles make fights. Despite being grossly under-sized, Randy managed to take the title away from a giant champion. Couture used his aggression, clinch-work and underestimated striking to save fans from Tim Sylvia’s reign of boredom. Randy’s speed (and his smaller stature) worked to his advantage. He used great head movement to evade Tim’s clumsy strikes. It was a great moment in UFC history.

Therefore, the UFC needs someone who matches up well with Lesnar. The important thing to remember is that we don’t necessarily need someone who is over 250 pounds. Granted, the solution to Lesnar may be a big guy like Shane Carwin. He has wrestling ability and knockout power equal to Lesnar.

Couture, despite holding his own, didn’t get the win over Brock because he didn’t have the wrestling advantage he had against Sylvia. Also, despite all this MMA-analysis, some guys only need 1 freaking punch to win a fight. Both Carwin and Lesnar fight that description.

Getting back to the notion of style match-ups, it should be noted that Brock is still a bit clumsy on his feet. Someone with precision striking could defeat Lesnar if he was able to evade the takedown. You don’t need to be a super-heavyweight to fit this description. Unfortunately, there is no elusive Karate expert in the heavyweight division.

As I mentioned in my review of the Lesnar/Mir fight from UFC 100, there is a soft-spoken man who has yet to compete in Dana White’s organization. Fedor is currently set to square-off against Josh Barnett, the only credible challenger Affliction has left. Dana has already made rumblings in the past week about wanting Fedor in the UFC.

Fedor may not be a giant, but he’s already slain one in Tim Sylvia, just last year. Fedor has such amazing timing that big guys simply can’t keep up with him. He also has the honor of submitting Hong Man Choi - a guy who weighs much more than Brock Lesnar.

All the fans Brock flipped off will want Dana to make this fight happen. As long as Lesnar is the champion, the UFC needs to bend over backwards to give him threatening opponents. Enough said.

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