MMA Round Up: Brock Lesnar Defends UFC Heavyweight Title
By Scott Heritage
Obviously the biggest news in the MMA world this week was Fedor Emelianenko’s shocking loss to Fabricio Werdum via triangle arm bar. Just as importantly though, the UFC have a high profile heavyweight match up of their own this weekend, as champion Brock Lesnar defends his belt against unbeaten heavy hitter Shane Carwin. The upshot being that the winner of that fight will almost certainly become the top ranked heavyweight in the sport.
If Lesnar wins then in short the UFC wins as well, being that he is the most marketable fighter in the sport today. Those claiming that Lesnar would beat Emelianenko will also no doubt increase in number. If Carwin wins though, then the division will be thrown into chaos across the sport in the short term, with the two former number one ranked heavyweights having been dethroned in the space of a week. As talented as Carwin is, he also doesn’t have the drawing power that Lesnar does, and from a marketing standpoint the UFC would no doubt prefer to keep Lesnar as the champion.
Because of the fact that the drawing power of Lesnar is on the card, the rest of the line up is less star heavy than usual, with the second fight on the main card being Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Chris Leben, who replaces an injured Wanderlei Silva. Regardless though there are plenty of interesting fights on the card, and several new faces will also be making appearances.
Former UFC middleweight champion Frank Shamrock announced his retirement from active competition on the StrikeForce: Fedor vs. Werdum broadcast, and he will continue to concentrate on commentating and training as he has been doing for the past few years. One of the early pioneers of cross training, Shamrock was also one of the few fighters in the early days of the sport who came into the cage with a specific game plan for each opponent, which can be seen to great effect in his fight against Tito Ortiz. There were rumors of a proposed fight with his adoptive brother Ken Shamrock a year or so ago, who has been estranged from Frank for several years. That was scrapped though after Ken tested positive for steroids and was subsequently banned from competition.
Speaking of Tito Ortiz, the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” has announced that he will be returning to the cage in October or November following neck surgery in March. The habitually injured former light heavyweight champion was scheduled to face off against old adversary Chuck Liddell after the end of the previous series of the Ultimate fighter, but pulled out a couple of weeks before the end of the series.
Tito now says he is feeling great and back into training, although I have to wonder how long it will be before he picks up another injury. After all of his recent fights he has reported injuries which most fighters would simply not attempt to compete with, although this trend has also coincided with a slump in form over the last few years as well. Although he is only 34, if Ortiz either can’t stay injury free or can’t start to rack up some wins against credible competition, it might be time for him to hang up his gloves.
In a mildly cretinous move Tito also proclaimed himself to be the “Muhammad Ali of MMA” in a recent interview, and claimed that today’s stars have him to thank for making decent money. As is all too often the case though, his perceptions don’t seem to be fully in line with reality, and he seems to be forgetting that as big as he was at one time, it was Chuck Liddell that became the face of the sport and helped bring it into the mainstream.
By all accounts Tito was very good to the fans when he was the champion, but even if there are fighters out there who perhaps owe a debt of gratitude to the likes of himself and others, a little humility wouldn’t hurt. As it is he was one of the first fighters to become a millionaire from MMA, and he perhaps forgets that there were fighters before him making next to nothing, many of whom left the sport before there was any real money to be made.
Dana White has for once made a decision everyone can get behind, the banning of Vuvuzelas from future UFC events. Vuvuzelas for those who haven’t been watching the world cup recently are cheaply made trumpet like instruments, which when played en mass make a sound like a swarm of flies over the entire arena. I’m surprised to be honest that they haven’t banned them at the world cup by this stage as well.
The long battle to bring MMA to New York has once again hit a set back after the issue was removed from a budget bill currently being put before the state assembly. Despite the fact that the sport could bring in a lot of revenue to the state, lawmakers don’t seem that eager to introduce it, even though the vast majority of the United States now recognizes it to be a big money spinner.
The attitude seems especially odd considering New York’s long history with boxing, although that in itself might be the problem. Those involved with boxing have attempted to stop MMA being introduced in several states, and perhaps view MMA as competition that could damage the revenues that boxing brings in. Given that Las Vegas long ago took over as the de-facto home of both MMA and big boxing events though, this seems a little misguided to say the least.
Most of the research comparing the two sports points to the audiences being largely made up of different demographics. Boxing fans tend to be older and MMA fans tend to fall into the much sought after 18-30 group. Despite this, both sports are currently flourishing and if anything they have probably helped each other by forcing the biggest and best fights to be made. Generally speaking the two sports have tended to keep well away from each other in terms of scheduling major events as well, conscious that competing with each other is largely pointless and can only hurt them both.