UFC 100 Review: Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir II

The second fight between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir went down as the main event of UFC 100, and it was definitely one for the record books.

The first fight between the two showed two things. Lesnar’s speed, strength, and agility, but also his impatience and inexperience. The second fight showed us that Lesnar is even more dangerous than he was two years ago. He’s just as fast, just as strong, and just as agile, but now he comes with patience and a great gameplan.

There were only two ways that Lesnar could lose this fight. He could be outpointed by the faster striking Mir, or he could get submitted. Lesnar’s greatest asset is his size and wrestling, so it would make sense for him to take the fight to the ground. He just had to learn enough BJJ to not get submitted, which he obviously has. In addition, Lesnar used his size by simply laying on Mir for the first round. He did not sit up, explode, or rain down punches. He pressed his gigantic girth against the smaller Mir, and waited. The ref would warn him every 30 seconds or so to do something, so Lesnar would punch once or twice, and then wait.

If you watch the fight again, Lesnar basically wraps his gigantic left arm around the back of Mir’s head. This immobilizes Mir’s upper body, and with Lesnar’s weight pressing through his hips onto Mir’s body, Mir could not move. This left one hand free to defend against Brock’s punches. Mir seemed to be alright, signalling his corner and the ref that he was alright, but for 5 minutes, Lesnar patiently pounded away whenever Mir would give him the chance.

When Mir went back to his corner, his face already looked like he had lost the fight. He was cut, bleeding, battered, and bruised. He was mentally broken. Lesnar could easily do this for the next 4 rounds and win the fight. Even though Mir wasn’t knocked out, or close to it, he was mentally broken. The fight was over, it just had to be played out.

The second round begins, and Mir actually gets a nice straight left in, backing Lesnar up into the cage. Mir throws a kick, which Lesnar catches, but before Lesnar can take him down, Mir throws a nice flying knee – his only offense of the fight. It lands, and maybe even dazed Lesnar, but we’ll never know. Lesnar falls on Mir, and sits there, relaxes, waits, and recovers. When he’s ready, he pushes Mir into the cage, immobilizes him again, and starts throwing more punches. They land, and they’re hard. The second Lesnar feels like he rocked Mir, he explodes. He had been saving his strength, his energy, his anger, for this moment, and it comes out through the back of Mir’s head. After a significant amount of punishment, Herb Dean stops the fight, and there is no argument from Mir. He was beat. His face was a mask of blood.

So where do they go from here?

Mir drops back down the ladder. There is no way he is going to fight Lesnar again. He is too small and too weak to beat Lesnar, not now that Lesnar actually has BJJ defense, and a perfect gameplan to stuff Mir. He might fight Herring next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mir took some time off. His road to recovery was a long one, and he TKO’d just before he regained his perch, and now he knows he won’t be getting it back. He was in the best physical and mental condition of his life, and he still came up short. That’s a new injury he’s going to have to recover from.

As for Lesnar, he’ll probably face the winner of the Couture/Nogueira fight, but that, at least to me, is an easy prediction. He already beat Couture (who has the best strategy against Lesnar so far, but still got destroyed without doing much damage), and Nogueira is done. He’s long past his prime, and should probably move towards coaching instead of fighting. One too many hits to the head, too slow, not strong enough for a man of Lesnar’s size.

What about Fedor? White has said that he wants to sign Fedor to face Brock. Will it happen? Who knows. Will it finally shut up the critics? Probably. But can Fedor take out Lesnar? I doubt it. At this point, I do not know if there is anyone out there gifted enough to overcome Lesnar’s size and strength advantage. I wish there was, but I don’t see it.

UFC 100 Preview: Lesnar vs Mir II

UFC 100 has been billed as the “biggest event in Mixed Martial Arts history”, and that is most likely true. In order to celebrate this centenial anniversary, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has decided to put together an amazing card. Headlining the event is Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir.

Brock Lesnar’s Background

Brock Lesnar is most famously known for his 3 year employment with the World Wrestling Entertainment corporation, WWE. His size and character allowed him to play fake wrestling for the fans. He grew dissatisfied with the company, and left, attempting to go into pro football in 2004. His brash personality clashed with many, and he started a number of smaller incidents during training/preseason. He was let go from the Vikings before the regular season began.

So Lesnar decided to become an MMA star. Unlike most fighters, Brock wanted the big time, and he wanted it now. He had one quick fight under the K-1 banner, quickly pummeling his opponent into submission. He approached Dana White and told him that he wanted into the UFC. For most fighters, Dana would have laughed him off and told him to wait and grow up a bit, get some more experience, and come back when he was a real fighter, but Lesnar wouldn’t be put off. Dana quotes Lesnar as saying that if he’s good, he’s good, if he’s not, he’s not. He didn’t want to wait. So White threw him into what has been called the deep end, against Frank Mir.

Frank Mir’s Background

Frank Mir first fought in the UFC back in 2001, at UFC 34. He quickly submitted his opponent by armbar. Born into a mixed martial arts family, Mir had been a grappler since a child, focusing his skill set on the ground. Mir’s fight career went on to slowly gain ground in the UFC, winning almost all of his fights by submission, the rest by decision. However, whenever his fights went longer than the first round, Mir would get exhausted. Eventually, he won the heavyweight championship from Tim Silvia when he broke Silvia’s forearm via armbar in the first round. Unfortunately, he never had a chance to defend his title, getting hit by a car while driving his motorcycle. His femur was broken, he was told he would never fight again.

Mir did eventually recover, and was not only able to walk, and run, but fight again. He returned to the UFC and was defeated. His next fight he won a close decision, but barely, and then dropped his next fight against Vera. The critics raged upon him, saying that even though he did recovered from the accident physically, he wasn’t back mentally. His career was over. The UFC granted him yet another chance, however, and Mir jumped all over the opportunity. He submitted his next opponent, declaring himself “back”. Mir, at least, thought he was ready for the big time again. So along comes Brock Lesnar.

Lesnar vs Mir I

The first match between Lesnar and Mir didn’t last very long. Brock rushed Mir, took him down, and started pounding on Mir. Mazaggati, the referee, stopped the action and took a point from Lesnar for illegal strikes to the back of the head. Mir was given time to recover, and the action started again. Lesnar caught Mir’s kick, landed a nice punch to the head, and took him down again. He resumed his wrestling and ground and pound, and when Mir got some distance sucked up Brock’s leg and got a nice leglock to submit Mir. Lesnar’s inexperience lost him the fight, though he continues to blame Mazaggati for the loss.

Since then, both fighters have won a number of respectable fights. Lesnar’s next fight was against Heath Herring, which he won in the first few seconds of the fight with a vicious right hand. It just took 14 and a half more minutes to declare him the victor. He then beat Couture, this time by TKO. Randy had a good gameplan, but got caught with a punch and couldn’t handle the punishment Lesnar gave him.

Mir, on the other hand, did a season of The Ultimate Fighter as a coach, culminating in a fight against Nogueira. Though he was the underdog, Mir picked Nogueira apart, eventually handing Nogueira a TKO loss. He showed much improved striking.

Lesnar vs Mir II

So who will win the rematch? Mir is currently the favorite to win the fight. He has way more experience, he has his confidence back, he’s supposed to be at the top of his game. Lesnar doens’t have the experience or patience to stay out of Mir’s submissions, just like last time. However, I disagree. I think that Lesnar is simply going to overpower and dominate the smaller Mir. All it will take is one punch, and Lesnar has landed them time and time again. He landed one against Mir their first fight, he broke Herring’s orbital bone with one punch, and he TKO’d Couture without much difficulty. Since that time, he’s been constantly improving his game, and I think that he is the type of fighter that will not make the same mistake twice. He got caught once, but I think that he will actually try to stand and bang with Mir for the first round or two. We’ve never seen Lesnar on his back, and we’ve never seen him take much of a punch, and I don’t think we’re going to.

Mir, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as good as everyone is saying. He’s gotten quick and easy submissions against two of his three wins, and when he fought Nogueira, Nogueira was recovering from a staph infection. That, and Nogueira is well past his prime, and probably should retire as a fighter.

If Lesnar is going to win this fight, he simply has to wait for round 2 or 3. Don’t go to the ground until he’s slippery enough (from sweat or blood) to get submitted easily. Clinch with Mir, strike with Mir. You might take a couple of jabs and maybe a solid hook or two, but judging from Lesnar’s build, he could take it. In round 3, take him to the ground, exhaust Mir, and eventually you’ll find an opening to pound him out.

If Mir is going to win this fight, he has to sharpen his striking and takedown defense. He needs to make sure that he is in well enough condition to go all 5 rounds, and he has to show Lesnar something he hasn’t seen before. He has to frustrate Lesnar, and make Lesnar uncomfortable. How he’s going to do that, I do not know. Test Brock’s chin, perhaps, without opening himself up to a takedown. Keep the kicks low and fast, keep the punches crisp and keep moving back out of the pocket. Use Lesnar’s size and anger against him, make him make a mistake, and capitalize on it.

UFC 99: Dan Hardy v Marcus Davis

Talk about a bad blood match.

Dan Hardy is a relative newcomer to the UFC. His first fight in the Octagon was against Akihiro Gono at UFC 89, in October of 2008. He won that fight, as well as his next fight against Rory Markham. Marcus Davis, ont he other hand, is a UFC vet, coming into the fight with 8 UFC fights under his belt, dropping only one in the last 14. So you might begin to understand why Marcus was a little ticked off that Dan Hardy was calling him out.

Not only that, but Hardy went a little bit farther. He started insulting Davis’ heritage, his homeland, calling him a “Fake Irishman” and saying that Davis was little more than a gimmick. He even got his online fan club to start photoshopping Davis into less than desireable situations, mostly making him look homosexual.

This, understandably, ticked Davis off. This also made Davis want to hurt Hardy bad. This is probably why Davis lost the fight.

For weeks before the fight, Davis thought of nothing other than this fight. How much he wanted to shut Hardy up, how badly he wanted to make him pay for the things that he said. He probably had the fight a couple thousand times in his head before he stepped into the octagon. Davis’ body showed up, but his head had a hard time staying in the cage as well.

Davis fought pretty well, regardless. He controlled the majority of the match (as he will tell anyone who will listen, post fight), but Hardy did more damage. He dropped Marcus in the second and cut him open in the third, so if you looked at the fighters at the end of the match, it looked like Hardy had won, so he got the decision. I can’t say that I disagree with the judges. Marcus may have controlled the fight, but controlling isn’t winning. Making your opponent bleed is.

Neither fighter fought to the best of their ability at UFC 99. It made for an interesting fight, but one that I’m more looking forward to happening again. Marcus is already calling for Davis Hardy II, but I’m not sure if Hardy would take that fight. I’m not sure that he should. I would love to see it, but if they fought again, Marcus would probably win, undoing the progress that Hardy made in taking the victory.

UFC 99: Wanderlei Silva v Rich Franklin Review

Last Saturday UFC 99 went down in Cologne, Germany. It was the first UFC to take place in Germany, and overall, it was a pretty good event.

The main event of the evening was Silva v Franklin, two fighters looking for their place in the UFC.

Rich Franklin was the middleweight champion at 185lbs before Anderson Silva came along. The Spider, as we all know, broke Franklin’s nose en route to victory, and has held the belt ever since. Rich attempted to take revenge on Anderson, but only managed to last longer against the larger and better fighter. Since then, Rich has been moving wherever the UFC will push him, attempting to settle into the 205lb division.

Silva, on the other hand, is also looking for his place in the UFC. Since coming back to the UFC in late 2007, he has lost 3 of 4 fights. For most fighers, that means that they no longer have a place in the UFC. Wanderlei, on the other hand, is a legend in the sport of MMA, and always tries to put on exciting shows. That means that as long as people are willing to pay to see him, the UFC is willing to keep him (see: Couture), even if he is past his prime. Wanderlei came into the UFC trying to fight at 205lbs, but he simply doesn’t have the frame or the build for that division anymore. The game has changed, but Silva has not – yet.

Silva has now revealed that he will attempt to compete at 186lbs, potentially pressured to go there by Dana White and the matchmaking crew at the UFC, who have determined that Anderson Silva has gone through everybody at 185 and needs opponents. It’s probably a smart move, if Silva can learn how to cut weight.

So we have one fighter moving from 185 to 205, and the other going from 205 to 185. Seeing as this fight is taking place between two fighters that are not competing in the same division, and has no particular bearing on ranking, the fight was deteremined to take place at a catchweight of 195lbs – the sweet middle ground between Silva and Franklin.

The fight was billed to be the most exciting fight of the night – and both fighters sought to impress. Franklin’s gameplan was to stay on the outside, keep his distance, and pick apart the older and slower Silva. Silva’s gameplan was the same gameplan that he always has – hit the other guy as hard as he can. The problem with Silva’s plan was that he needed to close the distance in order to strike with Franklin, or at least bait him into a slugfest. Once there, Silva’s powerful and aggressive style would hopefully give him yet another highlight reel knockout. Unfortunately for him, that didn’t quite happen, although he came close in Round 2.

Silva has managed to stalk Franklin down into a corner, and started swinging for the fences. Instead of circling away, or grappling, Franklin was confident enough to try to stand and bang with him – and he got caught. After the fight, Franklin mentioned that he went black for a second or two, but he was clever enough to grab ahold of Silva until he could recover. Following shouts from his corner, he “stuck to the game plan” and managed to keep enough distance for the rest of the fight in order to secure a slim decision victory. Some think that the fight should have been scored for Silva, and to be honest, it could have gone either way. Silva did more damage, but Franklin held control of the ring better, and did a better job of dictating where the fight would take place. Ironically, it was a very similar but opposite decision of the Hardy/Davis fight, where Davis controlled the majority of the fight, but got rocked and cut a couple of times.

If Silva managed to do more visual damage to Franklin, perhaps he would have gotten the decision victory as well.

Where do they go from here?

Silva is going to move down to 185. I’d love to see the UFC give him someone he can dismantle, just so that he can get used to beating the crap out of people again. I’m thinking that they might want to play off the anger that Wanderlei feels towards Anderson Silva right now, in order to supplement the buys that a PPV main event could generate. Honestly, I think that Wanderlei is done with. He’s dropped 4 of 5, and while he’s loving the fighting, the attention, and putting on a good show, he can’t win fights anymore. Joe Rogan kept calling for Wanderlei to attack with the aggressive style that he used to dominate his opponents with, but the game has changed. Anyone that’s too aggressive makes mistakes, and Wanderlei can’t simply scare guys into losing anymore. He’s still a big name, he’ll still draw buys, but he is far beyond title contention.

As for Rich Franklin, he’ll move back up to 205 and continue to groom that division. He’s still got some fight left in him, but he might be headed back downhill. It’s not his body that is giving out on him, it’s his mind. Some say that he’s a good fighter, but he will never win the big one. His losses come to Machida (current Light Heavyweight Champion), Silva (current Middleweight Champion) and Henderson, three of the best MMA fighters to have ever lived. This win over The Axe Murderer continued to show that he’s a good fighter, but he didn’t dominate Wanderlei. He didn’t finish him off, and I doubt that he could have. I see Rich becoming the UFC’s gatekeeper for Machida. He’s good enough to keep the crap out of title contention, but I can’t see him beating Anderson Silva, or Lyoto Machida.

Kimbo Slice on The Ultimate Fighter

The MMA community has been lit on fire by the annoucment that Kimbo Slice is going to be a participant on the tenth season of The Ultimate Fighter. How did this happen?

The Ultimate Fighter

The Ultimate Fighter is a reality television series that originally aired in January of 2005. It debuted as one part Survivor, one part MMA, but managed to evolve into the dominant method new fighters join the UFC. Many of today’s stars were once TUF alumni (see: Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans, Kenny Florian, etc). The showed allowed audiences to see “behind the scenes” of what it is like to be a fighter. Recently, ratings have been slipping, so the show has moved away from the crazy house antics (thank God no more Junie Browning – please don’t ever let that happen again) and towards the actual evolution of fighters.

Kimbo Slice

Kimbo is a new kind of TUF contestant. Typically, TUF takes unknowns – fighters that have an MMA record fighting in small promotions, and gives them a shot at getting a UFC contract. TUF makes them famous. Kimbo, on the other hand, is already famous, because he put videos on youtube of him outboxing some other guys in his backyard. Somehow, Kimbo managed to beat up guys who most likely had never boxed before, and who seemed to be slightly more than overweight. Kimbo could have left it at that, but I suppose that he wanted some additional fame and fortune, or maybe he just isn’t that smart, because he started to get involved in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. The UFC, obviously, wanted nothing to do with Kimbo.

Dana White has been quoted as saying,

“Kimbo Slice sucks, like I’ve said now for the last few months. This [expletive] guy can’t fight and he got knocked out in 13 seconds by a guy who didn’t win The Ultimate Fighter.”

In fact, Dana has been adverse to even go after the huge dollars that freak shows or celebrity fights could get:

“You won’t see a Silva versus Jones fight while Silva is under contract with me. I could do it, make it huge, make money, but I could have done a fight like this when we were bleeding money [in the early 2000s]. The fight would make some money, but it hurts MMA in the long term. We don’t do that because we love the sport. That’s a Pride or K-1 matchup. It’s not what we do.

So Kimbo fought where he could: EliteXC.

EliteXC gave him the easiest fights that they possibly could, which he managed to barely win. He had no “mixed” to his “arts”, even though he was training with Bas Ruten. And then Kimbo got his ass knocked out in 13 seconds by a guy who didn’t even make it into the UFC, and EliteXC went under.

But now Kimbo is in TUF. What the hell happened?

• TUF has been dropping ratings

Here’s a chance for TUF to become huge and profitable once again. The combination of Rashad Evans vs Rampage Jackson, coming off their jawing match against each other, was already generating some tension. Add that to Rampage being by far the most entertaining coach on TUF to date, vs Rashad’s cool calm and subtle sense of humour, and you’ve already got the chance to build some attention. Why not throw in youtube-sensation Kimbo Slice, and make him bunk with a bunch of 21 year olds?

• Kimbo must really want to be an MMA fighter

Quite frankly, this is a huge risk for Kimbo. He was already outed once as being a not so good fighter, and now he’s agreeing to do reality television just for a chance at a UFC contract? He could make more money going to any smaller promotion – because there he is guaranteed a high paycheck and a main event. In TUF, he gets six weeks in a house to train, and hopefully win a couple of fights.

• Kimbo isn’t getting paid any differently

While some think that Kimbo’s contact is going to be different from the other fighters, I don’t think so. I’m willing to bet that Dana White is going to keep being consistent. He’ll allow Kimbo to be on TUF, he even said he’d put together a heavyweight show for him, but he’s not going to be treated special. He’s not going to get a separate house, or room, or payment. He can train, and he can fight – and if he wins he can get into the UFC, but Dana does not think that Kimbo is going to win. Dana will use Kimbo’s popularity – sure – but he isn’t going to build Kimbo up to be a UFC star. He’ll take the ratings as he shows Kimbo getting his ass handed to him but TUF cast members.