Brock Lesnar on TUF 13: 5 Reasons He Will Be a Better Coach Than Expected

When Brock Lesnar was announced alongside Junior Dos Santos as a coach for The Ultimate Fighter Season 13, it came with quite a bit of controversy. Fans groaned as the powerhouse from Minnesota is coming off of a loss and has only fought in seven career mixed martial arts fights.

I must admit that I had my doubts about the former UFC Heavyweight Champion as a coach.

As rumors surfaced that he may be making a return to the WWE at some point, it looked as if Lesnar may simply be competing in MMA for the money and the exposure; and not for the competition which he had originally claimed.

But as Lesnar has come back to the spotlight and looked excited to be a part of TUF in the first episode. Perhaps we were too tough on the guy when many of us suggested that he wasn’t ready to coach on TUF.

In fact, here are five reasons why he’ll be a better coach than we initially expected.

5. The Hunger to Win is Still There

When Brock Lesnar takes to something, he doesn’t stop until he’s the very best.

When he made his UFC debut against Frank Mir at UFC 81, the hunger to win was very evident. This was a man who had been out of legitimate competition for far too long and needed to feel the rush of victory once again.

Though he lost the fight to Mir by submission, the statement was made that Lesnar was serious about the sport of mixed martial arts...And he was pretty good at it, too.

Just nine months later, Lesnar would have his hand raised as the UFC Heavyweight Champion when he defeated Randy Couture at UFC 91.

Some questioned his desire when he took time off after losing his title to Cain Velasquez, but Lesnar recently resurfaced looking as hungry as ever.

It won’t be Lesnar himself who steps in the cage during the Ultimate Fighter series, but his desire to win at all costs will rub off on his team.

4. Cardio Training

If we learned one thing from the first episode of TUF, it was that  Lesnar is going to whip his team into shape.

Cardio is an extremely important, yet very underrated aspect of mixed martial arts. With fighters who are likely competing in the biggest fight of their lives every time they fight on TUF, nerves can play a factor. The excitement level can lead a fighter to gas out much earlier than he normally would.

Though the fights on TUF are only two rounds, Lesnar’s fighters will be ready to go full-blast for those 10 minutes.

3. Wrestling Pedigree

In terms of pure wrestling skill, there may not be a better heavyweight MMA fighter on the planet than Lesnar. The former NCAA Division I National Champion has scored at least one takedown in every one of his MMA fights.

Lesnar’s team will need more than wrestling to make it to the finals and become the Ultimate Fighter, but there is no doubt that learning from a ground-and-pound specialist like Lesnar will be a huge asset.

The big question is if the wrestling techniques Lesnar and his fellow coaches teach will have the same effect with a significantly smaller fighter. Brock has outweighed almost all of his opponents by 40-plus pounds at fight time while the welterweights on TUF will be about the same size as one another.

The brute strength that Lesnar brings into the cage cannot be replicated, so the techniques will need to be crisp if they’re going to be anywhere near as effective with a smaller fighter.

2. Lesnar Won’t Be Doing All of the Coaching

A commonly overlooked factor of coaching on TUF is that the “faces” of each team, in this case Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos, don’t really do all of the coaching.

In fact, Georges St-Pierre went on record as saying that he didn’t even do much coaching at all.

The truth is that the “assistant coaches” these fighters bring in will be doing the majority of the coaching if Dos Santos and Lesnar are smart. Both fighters are relatively inexperienced, but the assistant coaches have groomed and will continue to groom champions.

He might not be doing all of the coaching, but if Lesnar’s team is successful, he will get a lot of the credit.

1. TUF Isn’t About the “Coaching” Anyway

At the end of the day, The Ultimate Fighter series is about three things:

Giving the fans something to mind about the UFC between events, finding the next potential star for the UFC and hyping a future fight between the two “coaches.”

There’s nothing wrong with those things, but I think the quicker we come to the realization that it’s not about who is the better “coach,” the better.

It’s an entertainment show. We should be treating it as such.

Lesnar is about as entertaining of a mixed martial artist as has ever competed in the UFC, or in any promotion for that matter. In fact, because of his previous fame as a pro wrestler, Lesnar may be the biggest draw in the history of MMA.

Certainly Brock’s skills make him someone to watch, but it’s his personality and ability to “sell” fights that make him a truly one-of-a-kind attraction.

Whether he wins or loses as a coach on the show, Lesnar will unquestionably be successful in hyping the No. 1 contendership fight between himself and Junior Dos Santos...And that’s all that the UFC is really looking for.