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Looking at Brock Lesnar’s performance against Randy Couture on Saturday, it’s hard to believe many reporters called him the next Kimbo Slice.
With a record of 2-1 in professional mixed martial arts competition, some critics made the most of very little ammunition in Lesnar’s video library.
No matter how hard Dana White tried, he couldn’t shake the Slice comparisons.
“If I had hair, I’d pull it out,” the UFC president quipped.
But any parallels between the titanic champion and his backyard-bred counterpart were erased at UFC 91. Lesnar’s size and strength bridged the gap in experience between he and Couture, setting the stage for a unique changing of the guard in the UFC’s inconsistent heavyweight division. Lesnar is the greenest—and possibly the most promising—champion in its history.
In their eight minutes together, Couture felt every single pound of the forty-five between them. There was no room for him to be elusive.
“He’s a big sum*****, that’s all there is to it,” Couture said after the fight.
Lesnar’s isolation from the outside world turned out to be the best thing for taking down a legend.
“The only thing that mattered was that I believed in myself,” Lesnar said of the pre-fight skepticism. “You guys out there do your job. There’s always going to be that, but I’ve been an athlete since I was five years old. I don’t even have the internet. I don’t read the newspapers. I quit doing that a long time ago. I’m just happy I came and succeeded and all my hard work paid off.”
Despite a quiet confidence in press junkets leading up to the fight, Lesnar was quite the opposite when he walked to the cage.
“Honest to god, up until when they said ‘let’s go,’ I was pretty nervous,” he admitted. “I didn’t really know what to expect. That first round for me was kind of a feel-out round, and to feel exactly what this guy’s capable of doing.”
Like many fighters early in their careers, Lesnar woke up in his first exchange with “The Natural.” When Couture cut him with a punch in the second round, he got the motivation he needed to finish the fight.
“I wanted to get first blood on Randy; something in my head said, ‘alright, we’ve got to pick this up,’” Lesnar said.
Lesnar had taken steps towards finishing Couture early in the second frame, wobbling the champ with a right elbow as the two stood in front of each other. Couture drove for a takedown, but could not get his oversized opponent to the mat. The fight would be won, or lost, on the feet.
“After getting into a few exchanges with him I felt like I was connecting with him, and he connected with me but, quite frankly, I just felt like I was hitting harder and I was going to connect before he did,” Lesnar said.
When Lesnar’s right hand glanced off Couture’s temple, signaling the beginning of the end, he didn’t even feel it.
“I thought Randy was going to do a Superman on me and stand up,” he said. “I was a bit shocked. I don’t even know where it hit. I don’t care where it hit. He was on the ground and I was going to capitalize on it.”
With a shiny new belt on his waist—no doubt pinned to the last hole—the naysayers don’t bother him. He doesn’t know who Kimbo Slice is anyways.
“At the end, when the time is up and your hand is raised, that’s what matters,” he said.
The second bracket of the UFC’s unofficial heavyweight tournament commences on Dec. 27. Frank Mir will face off with interim heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to determine Lesnar’s next opponent. Lesnar said in no uncertain terms who he preferred to face.
“I need a rematch with Frank Mir,” he said.
With a record of 2-1 in professional mixed martial arts competition, some critics made the most of very little ammunition in Lesnar’s video library.
No matter how hard Dana White tried, he couldn’t shake the Slice comparisons.
“If I had hair, I’d pull it out,” the UFC president quipped.
But any parallels between the titanic champion and his backyard-bred counterpart were erased at UFC 91. Lesnar’s size and strength bridged the gap in experience between he and Couture, setting the stage for a unique changing of the guard in the UFC’s inconsistent heavyweight division. Lesnar is the greenest—and possibly the most promising—champion in its history.
In their eight minutes together, Couture felt every single pound of the forty-five between them. There was no room for him to be elusive.
“He’s a big sum*****, that’s all there is to it,” Couture said after the fight.
Lesnar’s isolation from the outside world turned out to be the best thing for taking down a legend.
“The only thing that mattered was that I believed in myself,” Lesnar said of the pre-fight skepticism. “You guys out there do your job. There’s always going to be that, but I’ve been an athlete since I was five years old. I don’t even have the internet. I don’t read the newspapers. I quit doing that a long time ago. I’m just happy I came and succeeded and all my hard work paid off.”
Despite a quiet confidence in press junkets leading up to the fight, Lesnar was quite the opposite when he walked to the cage.
“Honest to god, up until when they said ‘let’s go,’ I was pretty nervous,” he admitted. “I didn’t really know what to expect. That first round for me was kind of a feel-out round, and to feel exactly what this guy’s capable of doing.”
Like many fighters early in their careers, Lesnar woke up in his first exchange with “The Natural.” When Couture cut him with a punch in the second round, he got the motivation he needed to finish the fight.
“I wanted to get first blood on Randy; something in my head said, ‘alright, we’ve got to pick this up,’” Lesnar said.
Lesnar had taken steps towards finishing Couture early in the second frame, wobbling the champ with a right elbow as the two stood in front of each other. Couture drove for a takedown, but could not get his oversized opponent to the mat. The fight would be won, or lost, on the feet.
“After getting into a few exchanges with him I felt like I was connecting with him, and he connected with me but, quite frankly, I just felt like I was hitting harder and I was going to connect before he did,” Lesnar said.
When Lesnar’s right hand glanced off Couture’s temple, signaling the beginning of the end, he didn’t even feel it.
“I thought Randy was going to do a Superman on me and stand up,” he said. “I was a bit shocked. I don’t even know where it hit. I don’t care where it hit. He was on the ground and I was going to capitalize on it.”
With a shiny new belt on his waist—no doubt pinned to the last hole—the naysayers don’t bother him. He doesn’t know who Kimbo Slice is anyways.
“At the end, when the time is up and your hand is raised, that’s what matters,” he said.
The second bracket of the UFC’s unofficial heavyweight tournament commences on Dec. 27. Frank Mir will face off with interim heavyweight champ Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to determine Lesnar’s next opponent. Lesnar said in no uncertain terms who he preferred to face.
“I need a rematch with Frank Mir,” he said.
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