The King is Here

I am not sure if readers of this blog caught this, but I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Kimbo Slice. Just months ago, I couldn’t even comprehend why I had to put up with this guy being considered a good fighter and why I had to put up with his ignorant fans. I very much disliked hearing so called fight fans tell me how “street certified” Kimbo was. I really didn’t care for the people who were saying “he could knock out anyone”. The true MMA fans knew just what a garbage fighter Kimbo Slice was, but still couldn’t convince the mainstream TV audience. One could only imagine my face when Seth Petruzelli knocked Kimbo out in just 14 seconds. I was jumping around and yelling. I think I almost cried a tear of joy. I would put money down that UFC President Dana White was doing the same thing that night. I would also put money down that he was doing the same thing after last night’s card ended.

Dana White has been living a nightmare for the last year. The UFC Heavyweight Champion and the organization’s most popular fighter, Randy Couture, wanted out of his contract. To good Couture felt he was for the rest of the fighters left in the UFC. The only man left on the planet that was worthy enough to face him was the pound for pound best fighter in the world, Fedor Emelianenko. Mr. White and Mr. Couture did battle in court rooms for the better part of 2008. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Dana White was the one left standing and Randy Couture wouldn‘t be getting his dream fight with Fedor. Not in the near future that is. There was still a problem that UFC management needed a solution for. Their champion had left the company once before and still could cause trouble down the road. With a right hand and a stream of endless hammer fists, Brock Lesnar help Dana White and UFC management get that forty five year old monkey off their back.

That’s right, after only four professional MMA fights Brock Lesnar is the UFC Heavyweight Champion. Even more impressing is how he won it. Their were a handful of unanswered questions about Lesnar that I pointed out in my preview of the fight. It would be safe to say that he answered all of those after last night.

The first round opens up with a clinch battle that sees Couture winning and Lesnar is forced against the fence. Right away something is very off. In all the hype and previews it was seen that Lesnar had super human power and would easily control Couture in the grappling parts of the fight. Joe Rogan even said, when Brock was making his cage walk, that because of his size and look that he was like a boss character from a video game. The start of round one might say other wise. Randy Couture was keeping Brock Lesnar against the cage wall and threatening him with takedowns. Lesnar did end up taking his opponent to the ground with a double leg but Randy wouldn’t be there for long, and got to his feet quickly. Something else was off from the previews. Brock Lesnar was winning in the stand up. Brock was able to throw big knees and also able to land a combination or two of punches. In the end, I felt that Lesnar was able to win the round because of it.

Round two is where “the next big thing” shined. Lesnar landed a good elbow that rocked Couture to open the round. The first part of the round was a kick boxing match which saw both fighter take big hits. I had talked about before how Lesnar wasn’t tested in his fights and fan didn’t know if he could take a punch. Fans can now scratch that one off the list. Randy landed punches that would have put other fighters down, or at least hurt them. Not Brock Lesnar, he just walked through the hall-a-famer’s best strikes and dished out his own. One of Couture’s punches did happen to cut Brock above the eye. Showing how far he had come as a fighter, Brock Lesnar stayed calm and didn’t try to rush the fight because of it. Just over the half point of the round Lesnar landed a right hand that dropped Couture. The challenger jumped on the champion and started to rain down hammer shots before the fight was stopped.

So we know now that Brock Lesnar can take a punch. We know now that Brock Lesnar had the smallest learning curve of anyone in the sport. We know now that Brock Lesnar here to stay. What we don’t know about Brock Lesnar is, who’s out there that can defeat him? If he can get past the winner of Mir/Nog, who really knows?