Issue 086

March 2012

When former professional wrestling superstar Brock Lesnar scored a second-round knockout over Randy Couture to become the UFC’s heavyweight champion in November 2008, I briefly hung my head in shame.

After all, if this king of fake fighting could turn his attention to mixed martial arts and earn the sport’s highest honor after just 17 months and four professional fights in the cage, how exactly were casual viewers supposed to look upon MMA fighters as the best athletes in the world?

But now, after back-to-back losses in the Octagon saw Lesnar walk away from the sport, I must admit, I’m going to miss him.

“Brock Lesnar came to me one night and pulled me aside and said, ‘I want to fight in the UFC,’” UFC president Dana White said. “I laughed. He was 1-0. He came from the WWE.”

The idea did seem comical at the time. Sure, in addition to his ‘wrasslin’ accomplishments, Lesnar did boast an impressive collegiate wrestling career that included national championships at both the Junior College and Division I levels, but he was nearly eight years removed from those glory days and hadn’t actively spent time developing the striking and jiu-jitsu skills necessary to compete at the highest level of MMA.

And yet White relented, and thankfully so. It was a gamble bringing such an untested fighter into the cage, especially knowing his hefty salary and relationship with the spotlight demanded top-flight matchups from moment one. Yet somehow, it worked.

In his UFC debut, Lesnar was one controversial Steve Mazzagatti call away from earning a first-round stoppage over former heavyweight champion Frank Mir. He’d rebound six months later with an absolute destruction of longtime veteran Heath Herring – a man who brought 41 fights worth of experience to the table – breaking Herring’s orbital bone with the first punch of the fight and applying constant pressure through the remaining 15 minutes.

Fighting in his home state of Minnesota, a jubilant Lesnar did what he does best after the fight: he commanded an audience.

“I fell off the horse against Frank Mir, but tonight I got on that stallion and rode out of town,” Lesnar said following his UFC 87 win over Herring, ‘The Texas Crazy Horse.’

Fan reaction to Lesnar’s post-fight jab was split right down the middle. His supporters ate it up and made sure the world knew Lesnar was the sport’s ‘next big thing.’ His detractors found the barb disrespectful and called him a one-trick pony. It was that sort of polarizing effect that Lesnar would ride to superstardom. 

Lesnar was the type of needle-mover the sport will always need. He was the one SportsCenter wanted to visit the ESPN studios. He was the fighter whose presence immediately tuned a UFC pay-per-view event into a blockbuster spectacle not to be missed.

I’ll never forget the feel of Anaheim, California’s Honda Center when Lesnar was walking in to defend his title against the man who would dethrone him that night at UFC 121, Cain Velasquez. The entire building was on its feet as Metallica’s Enter Sandman blared over the speakers. It was truly one of the loudest welcomes ever offered by a UFC crowd, and Lesnar was the reason. 

Ironically, it was almost exactly one year later when the company came back to the same venue to host its first-ever event on network television, UFC on Fox 1. Again, there was a heavyweight championship headliner in Velasquez against the man who would take his belt, Junior Dos Santos. And while the feeling for the fight was amazing, especially with a Fox audience tuning in from across the nation, there were a few decibels missing from Lesnar’s time in the Honda Center spotlight.

Lesnar ultimately avenged his loss to Mir at the high-profile UFC 100 and also downed Shane Carwin in a thrilling come-from-behind win at UFC 116. But a pair of battles with diverticulitis left him inactive for long periods of time, and the momentum he gained during his 2008 introduction to the UFC saw him fight just four times in his final 29 months under contract.

Alistair Overeem put the final nail in Lesnar’s career coffin at UFC 141, obliterating the wrestler with pinpoint strikes to the body, including powerful kicks and knees that saw the former champ crumple to the floor in pain. 

Ultimately, many may remember Lesnar for his late-career failures, which saw him handled rather easily by both Overeem and Velasquez. 

Should he return to professional wrestling, it will do little to convince MMA fans that he was ever a legitimate real fighter. It’s a cruel reality in a sport with so stern of a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mentality. But Lesnar should be remembered for exactly what he was: an MMA superstar who likely brought hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of new eyeballs to the sport.

So from the man who lamented Lesnar’s meteoric rise through the ranks, let me also say in retrospect what an entertaining, important and impressive ride it was. 

“He brought a lot of excitement to the heavyweight division,” White said. “What that man accomplished in a short amount of time with one fight is amazing.”

By John Morgan, former Fighters Only World MMA Awards ‘Journalist of the Year’.