BROCK LESNAR SMASH!!!
Of all the opponents the UFC selected for Brock Lesnar, I'm happy they picked someone who wasnt just famous for getting punched in the face. It would have been too easy for them to pick a Cabbage Correira or some other guy with no ground game and just let him get demolished by Brock in order to build hype.
Lesnar said he wanted to compete against the top guys, he said he wanted to prove himself against legitimate competition, and there are few guys better than the guy who snapped Tim Sylvia's arm in half.
Frank Mir is was a warrior, back in the day. He had one of the most devestating submission games in the heavyweight division and some solid standup to back it up, but alot of people aren't sure that guy still exists.
Sure, he submitted Antoni Hardonk in his last fight, but there are Special Olympics judoka who could submit Hardonk blindfolded. While Hardonk trained some jiu-jitsu with Rickson Gracie leading up to that fight, I (like everybody else in the world) knew that his ground game was not going to be a match for Mir's. There's a reason for that:
It turns out that three months of jiu-jitsu is not enough to deal with a guy who's been doing it since he was 16.
The real question is, will Brock Lesnar's football playing, piledriver slamming athleticism be able to handle submission fighting. It's not like guys Lesnar's size haven't tried to fight in this sport before, coming in with a wrestling background and "unmatched athleticism."
Are we forgetting Bob Sapp?
Are we forgetting Mark Kerr?
Has Dana White learned nothing from watching both of their careers slowly drain down the toilet as fighters with blackbelts in real martial arts take over the sport?
Didn't he want the first four UFC's?
Apparently he thinks that Lesnar is the exception to the rule, a fighter who can make the leap from being an athlete with a decent wrestling background to being a fighter with a solid skillset and some credibility.
Mark Kerr is the one on the bottom, getting punched in the face.
While Sapp and Kerr held their own for a while (Kerr was ranked at the top of the sport for a few months), none of them had to compete with serious BJJ warriors until later. Sapp had to deal with it once he fought Nogueira and Kerr, well, Mark Kerr didn't need a BJJ blackbelt's help to fall apart.
The question is really whether Mir will let himself get overwhelmed and do what the Gracies' insist one cannot do in a fight, ever. Will Mir cave to the pressure of having a 285 pound opponent trying to shove those four ounce gloves down his throat?
I'm betting he won't, given his experience, but since Mir's motorcycle accident, I've been worried about his health and his ability to cope with the psychological apsects of fight prep. That said, I'm going to go with the veteran and the BJJ guy on this one because, well, he's the veteran and the BJJ guy.
Lesnar, on the other hand, will continue to flap his mouth, win or lose.
At least he's stepping in the cage, while Floyd Mayweather and Kurt Angle sit on their couches. Gotta respect Lesnar for that, even if he might bore us to death with a layngay like the world has never seen.
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