UFC 141 Results: Was Brock Lesnar Ever as Good as We Thought He Was?

Brock Lesnar has apparently retired from the UFC. Tonight in the main event of UFC 141, Alistair Overeem punished Lesnar en route to a first-round TKO.

Overeem's victory was big enough news on its own. The bigger news, however, came after the fight, when Lesnar told Joe Rogan during the pay-per-view telecast that he will not fight again in the Octagon.

"I've had a really difficult couple of years with my disease," said Lesnar, who has suffered from diverticulitis. "I'm going to officially say that this is the last time you'll see me in the Octagon...Brock Lesnar is officially retired."

It's natural given this news to do a little reflecting. In his four-year, six-month and 28-day MMA career spanning eight fights, Brock Lesnar won the UFC heavyweight belt and defended it twice. That is not nothing. That doesn't just happen. But at the same time, it wasn't long ago that Lesnar was the consensus baddest man on the planet, the irresistible force of MMA.

So was he ever truly on that level, or was there a little bit of smoke-blowing or groupthink in the mix?

Now, obviously, the two bouts with diverticulitis greatly affected him. That is now abundantly clear. He mentioned it in his retirement announcement. No one gets a foot of their colon taken out and then just jumps out of the hospital bed and starts hitting tires with sledgehammers the next morning. It seemed at one point like he could make a full recovery. Now it seems he couldn't.

But before that, when he was at the absolute height of his powers, was he really the baddest dude on Earth like so many people claimed?

You know what? I think he was.

Think about the way he swarmed Randy Couture. I know Couture was old, but it's still not easy to manhandle Captain America. Think about Heath Herring, Frank Mir and, to a lesser extent, Shane Carwin. The way he would freight-train his opponents and hammerfist them into oblivion. The way he took the best shots from Carwin's 5x gloves and came back to win by choke-out. The way this shaven polar bear would skitter around the ring like a welterweight.

He only fought three times from November 2008 to July 2010. But during that time, it was hard to see what could stop him. I'm not going to be a revisionist historian. And I'm definitely not going to hold his disease against him. Dance on his grave if you must, but I admit that I thought of Lesnar as an extremely strong champion.  

He was an amazing athlete and a very good fighter. And for a time—a relatively short time, but a time nevertheless—yes, he was who we thought he was. He was the baddest SOB in the world.