Georges St-Pierre and Brock Lesnar Dominate at UFC 100

• Brock Lesnar easily dispatched Frank Mir last night and unified the UFC heavyweight title. Lesnar possesses one “skill” that Frank Mir couldn’t overcome: brute strength. Brock caught Mir in a headlock/armlock and sat on it through the first round and a similar wrist lock in the second round. Watching Frank Mir try to escape from Lesnar’s single hand hold, told the whole story. Lesnar’s physical strength is impressive.
• For what it’s worth, I was impressed with Frank Mir’s performance despite the loss. Mir was active and and kept looking for submissions during the first half of round one. Mir also was able to survive through the second half of round one where a lot of fighters probably would have been out with the strikes Brock was landing. It’s good to see Mir back in shape and concentrating on fighting and I look forward to seeing him in upcoming fights.
• Personally, I still don’t think Brock Lesnar has improved his MMA game much and still lacks many rudimentary skills that all other top MMA athletes possess today. Lesnar has wrestling and strength and that is all. He doens’t have a good striking game and he has absolutely no ground game. Lesnar sat still and didn’t look to improve his position on the ground for nearly 4 minutes in the first round; but, then again, he didn’t really need to as his strength allowed it to stay put and keep Mir from moving. Mir had the skills and technique, just not the strength. Will a fighter with equal strength, say a Shane Carwin, be able to deal with Lesnar’s grip? Only time will tell.
• Dana White and Co. have to be getting increasingly frustrated with Brock Lesnar and the way he portrays himself during “official” UFC duties. MMA has had “heels” before, but never one who embraced and fostered the stigma as much as Lesnar is doing. I guess you can take the fighter away from professional wrestling, but you can’t take the professional wrestling away from the fighter. For the UFC’s marquee event, UFC 100, I’m sure White loved Lesnar trying to leave the pre-fight press conference early on three separate occassions. I’m sure White loved Lesnar flipping the crowd off and intentionally bashing the UFC’s largest corporate sponsor, Bud Lite. Lesnar is fighting to get a paycheck and Zuffa will continute to provide it, but hopefully they are starting to sour on Lesnar as the face of the promotion. In a post-fight interview with ESPN, Lesnar apologized to fans for his actions and to Bud Light for his comments – you can be sure this was a direct order from Zuffa.
• Georges St. Pierre continues to prove that he is easily the best in the world at 170 lbs. With three commission officers watching GSP like a hawk, there can be no possible “excuse” for GSP’s domination of Thiago Alves
• If you still are impressed by the way St. Pierre dominates his opponents or with the ease that St. Pierre takes his opponents to the ground, stop. Just stop it. Stop being impressed, because with GSP it’s just commonplace.
• I really hope Zuffa and the MMA crowd stop trying to push GSP into a fight at middleweight, something he clearly doesn’t want to do. There is nothing wrong with St. Pierre wanting to concentrate on his weight class and work towards his legacy of being the best MMA welterweight of all time.
• Oh boy, I can’t begin to say how much I enjoyed watching Dan Henderson absolutely crush Michael Bisping. Bisping clearly was a bit intimidated or anxious for this fight as he was very jumpy and unwilling to engage in the first round. Henderson continues to load up and look to land his big right hand and was finally able to do so for the first time in the UFC. That right hand made Henderson famous in PrideFC and has now done the same for the UFC-centric fanbase.
• I loved the diving, full weight “hulk smash” Hendo threw at Bisping’s face to finish the match off as well. He didn’t settle for a downward strike from the top, he went with the full, flying bomb.
• In my opinion, Alan Belcher won his fight against Yoshihiro Akiyama last night. I had Belcher winning 29-28 in what proved to be a solid fight. How judges like Adelaide Baird continue to get named as judges for MMA events is beyond me. This isn’t the first time Adelaide has pulled out some crazy scorecards and giving a 30-27 nod to Akiyama last night is ridiculous. The fight was close, but in no way was it a 30-27.
• Jon Fitch didn’t do much to rebuild his status last night against Paulo Thiago. Thiago showed how good of a BJJ practitioner he is and impressed me a bit, but I still don’t think he is long for the UFC.
• Mark Coleman got his victory over Stephan Bonnar but looked just as grizzled doing it. Not good news for Bonnar who is now in a tough spot, but Coleman didn’t show any more stamina or techniques that warrant continued exposure in the UFC.
• With each and every time I hear him speak, I continue to despise Mike Goldberg more and more. It’s hard to believe that a guy who has been doing UFC events for years is so unknowledgeable and so infuriating to listen to as a commentator.