The generation that put the UFC in the mainstream is slowly fading away.
Chuck Liddell has lost his last two fights. Tim Sylvia is coming off a drubbing. Matt Hughes is getting older. Randy Couture is having trouble negotiating with Dana White. Tito Ortiz might still have something left, but needs a big turnaround fight after his draw with Rashad Evans.
Ken Shamrock is gone entirely, and as for B.J. Penn—the last we saw of him, he was on The Ultimate Fighter.
But change may not be such bad thing.
The next generation of fighters—Quinton Jackson, Georges St. Pierre, Forrest Griffin, and Brock Lesnar among them—looks primed to take over the UFC reins. And to do it, they may need to take take down their predecessors in the Octagon.
I for one would love to see Forrest Griffin and Chuck Liddell fight. As it stands, though, Lidell looks likely to fight Ortiz again—which means Brock Lesnar may emerge as the standard-bearer for the new generation against old.
Lesnar has only had one career MMA fight, but was runner-up for the NCAA wrestling championship at the University of Minnesota. "The Next Big Thing" is fast, powerful, and smart—and his match with Frank Mir the day before the Super Bowl is very intriguing.
Mir is a former UFC Heavyweight Champion, having won the title by breaking Sylvia's arm. The veteran is an expert on submission...but then again Lesnar is the real deal.
I see Brock winning the match before facing a proven UFC stud like Andrei Arvloski. That would be a fight worth watching.
In any event, the UFC is building a new nucleus of top-tier fighters. From what I've seen, the future seems to be in good hands.
2 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete