Both former professional wrestlers, champions inside the squared-circle.
Both mixed martial artists, with fighting experience inside an Octagon-ring.
One an MMA legend and pioneer of the sport. The other, a three-time collegiate national champion wrestler with only one professionally-sanctioned fight under his belt.
One tested positive for anabolic steroids, the other made famous in a sport known for its steroid entertainers.
No—not bad-ass UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, tentatively set to unify title at UFC 100 soon as interim champion Frank Mir recovers 100 percent from a knee injury.
March Badness, a heavily-hyped, hybrid boxing-MMA fight card set for next week, featuring these two fighters now sits in limbo, waiting word from promoter Roy Jones Jr.
With the world's least-dangerous man Ken Shamrock now suspended from competition by the California State Athletic Commission for a year and fined $2,500, March Badness now takes its customary backseat role to college basketball's mesmerizing March Madness tournament.
Shamrock still reserves the right to an appeal. But by then we'll be writing about another wishy-washy elite athlete's one shiny black-eye sports moment, ridding all sports of their integrity and all athletes of their fans admiration.
Oh, and next year's NCAA tourney would have already tipped off by then.
True fight fans will always remember Shamrock more for his contributions to the UFC and MMA, rather than this recent steroid convinction. Casual fans may even see the same characteristics in Shamrock that helped land Mickey Rourke the staring role in The Wrestler.
Shamrock, an out-of-touch fighter, clings one last gutsy-gory-and-no glory comeback fight. Just like we'll wait for The Wrestler 2 before Randy Robinson ram-jams the great Ayatollah, and earns Rourke an Oscar.
Now, we wait a year before Shamrock can redeem himself both inside the Octagon as a cagey veteran fighter and outside the cage as devil's advocate for the dangers of steroid abuse.
You know just because Brock Lesnar can fail at playing professional football, conquer collegiate wrestling, fake wrestling professionally, and dominate real championship fighters in the UFC doesn't mean every former elite college wrestler, multi-sport pro athlete, ex-professional wrestler, or glorified movie stuntman can do the same.
World Wrestling Entertainment superstar-wrestler-turned ultimate fighter Bobby Lashley, who was originally scheduled to fight Shamrock in the Pensacola punch-fest, now finds himself without a big-time MMA organization to fight for, without a main-event opponent to fight against, and without a defining moment to jumpstart his MMA career.
It's a damn shame Lashley won't rock the MMA landscape with a memorable win over one of the greatest fighter this sports' ever seen
In his MMA debut as part of the Mixed Fight Alliance, Lashley, who is signed to the American Top Team fight camp, defeated fellow rookie and Jiu-jitsu fighter Josh Franklin at the “There Will Be Blood" fight card.
Towering well over 6’3" and weighing in at roughly 250lbs, Lashley with his immense size, his maniac speed, and his sheer power may be a force-to-reckon MMA world for quite some time. An amateur wrestling background saw Lashley excel to championship status. And now hardcore training sessions under the tutelage of Marcus “Conan” Silveira, Lashley's ready to make an immediate impact in the sport.
His explosive quickness and his incredible-hulk, manic-like strength clearly covers up any lingering issues in Lashley's ground-and-pound game, and sends other MMA fighters scouring to their respective corners.
No question the comparisons between Lashley and Lesnar exists. Not only did both guys have superb amateur wrestling careers, but both were also established pro wrestlers before transitioning to the MMA. Both muscle-bound fighters were highly marketable in the WWE and will be the same within the MMA world.
We've already seen how immensely popular Lesnar has become, even before his memorable UFC title win over the legendary Randy "the natural" Couture. As easy a comparison we draw from a real fighter in Shamrock to the fictional Indy-wrestler Randy Robinson, a similar one also resonates in the careers of both Lesnar and Lashley. How early we draw such comparisons may not be fair for either fighter?
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