What We Learned From Brock Lesnar in 90 Seconds
By Mike MacLeod • Feb 3rd, 2008 • Category: FeaturesAt UFC 81 last night, Brock Lesnar submitted to Frank Mir’s leg lock at 1:30 of the first round. Despie such a short fight, I learned a lot about Lesnar’s skills and his future as a fighter.
Brock Lesnar is huge.
Brock weighed in at 265 lbs but looked to be 280 as he entered the octagon. Despite being the same height he looked much more physically imposing than Frank Mir. There aren’t any heavyweights that come to mind that have the strength to be able to push around Lesnar from a purely physical perspective.
Brock Lesnar is strong.
Brock forced Mir to the mat in the first five seconds. This was not by a sweep or a single-leg takedown. It was by pure brute force. The same thing happened again forty seconds later after referee Steve Mazzagatti stood them up and penalized Lesnar with a point for hitting Mir in the back of his head. Mir is far from the strongest fighter in this division, but this display demonstrates that there will be few heavyweights that will be able to match Lesnar’s strength.
Brock Lesnar can handle the pressure.
Lesnar appeared calm and poised from the time he left the locker room until he left the octagon after the fight. UFC 81 will likely be his most-anticipated, most-watched, and most-analyzed fight for the foreseeable future. In fact, he may not be under any more scrutiny unless he works his way into a title match down the road and he looked like he was in his home gym.
Brock Lesnar still has excellent wrestling skills.
Despite overwhelming Mir with his strength, Lesnar also displayed glimpses of his wrestling greatness. While on the mat, he controlled Mir’s body maintaining leverage. When Mir was able to eventually slip into guard he was able to make several submission attempts, one of them being the finishing leg lock. If Lesnar would have taken the fight back to his feet at that time, he could have continued the process of takedowns followed by hammerfists and elbows.
Brock Lesnar has a lot to learn.
Frank Mir possibly has the best Jiu Jitsu skills in the heavyweight division and many of the best fighters have submitted to him. But leaving his leg open like he did was a rookie mistake by Lesnar. Brock knew going in that a submission was Mir’s only possibility for a win. Whether he did not train enough on submission defense or if he forgot about his gameplan, one would think that Mir would have needed to be a little more sly in order to sink something in.
Brock Lesnar is going to be a force in the UFC.
If Lesnar joins a top MMA camp, he will be extremely dangerous. In fact, I would be surprised if there were not a couple of camps looking for Brock Lesnar’s phone number this morning. One cannot become a BJJ blackbelt in one year, but one can learn how to better use their strengths against BJJ tactics in that time.
In January 2009, Brock Lesnar will be a much more rounded fighter and will likely be the scariest human in mixed martial arts.
Mike MacLeod is an MMA journalist and freelance writer. In addition to his role as Editor at BadManSports.com, Mike is a contributing writer for FiveOuncesOfPain.com
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A rookie mistake to say the least. My friend called that would be were Mir won the fight before it ever happened. I was obvious to everyone except Brock Lesnar.
Brock is also smart.
Brock will learn from this and improve his game. He will learn what he can and cannot do and improve his weaknesses because he wants to be on top. Once he learns how to defend and avoid getting got he will be a force.
Brock can also hit very hard, very fast. In only 1:30, Frank Mir’s face was battered and cut due to Lesnar’s barrage of hits.
I look forward to more of Lesnar down the line.
Jedd,
Brock can indeed hit hard and fast. In his first MMA fight, the bout lasted 60 seconds and he threw 30 head strikes.
I also look forward to more from him.
Mike
Lesnar got screwed. If Maz didn’t stand them up, Mir most probably would have ended up in the hospital. The ref made a bogus call plain and simple.
I think the heavyweight division saw something out of Lesnar that they didn’t want to see; potential. While Lesnar was un-poised at times he gave Mirr 15 minutes worth of beating in about 90 seconds. As Brock settles down in the ring(while he appeared calm, his movements were spastic), he’s going to show rare combination of speed, strength and athletic ability. Mirr got the submission everyone knew he would, but in the post fight interview he looked like he was in a car wreck. Lesnar will slow down, his punches will be less manic and more thought out, and it’s going to be a really really bad day for the current crop of one dimensional heavyweights.
You biased fools, Lesnar is not near UFC standards, Mirr would destroy him 100 out of 100 times, as would 90 percent of the heavyweight division.
Brock is not ready. Mir finished him, but Big Nog would eat him for breakfast. If you think that Brock is the most powerful heavyweight around look on youtube for Bob Sapp vs Big Nog. Sure Sapp is nowhere near the all round athlete that Lesnar is, but he is bigger and stronger (I think he was around 350lbs when he fought Nog).
That said I was pretty impressed (more than I thought I would be) with Lesnar. He has the physical tools and the drive to be great, but he needs more training. In theory he should have enough to finish Mark Coleman, but you never know, Coleman is also an excellent wrestler.
Brock will never perch at the top of the MMA ladder, but he just may float everywhere around it.
I don’t think Nog has better than 50/50 against Lesnar. (The same chances I gave Mir) Nog style of getting his face beat in for ten minutes until he catches his opponent isn’t a sound strategy against Lesnar. It’s also the only thing he can really do.
Sapp is not much stronger than Lesnar. It’s a 70 pound weight difference, but it’s debatable whether there is any strength difference.
Mir was an absolutely horrible first match for Brock. The only heavyweights I can see having a decent chance are the bigtime submitters.
Strikers are not going to be able to beat him because he can dictate where the fight takes place. If he wants to fight on the ground the fight is now on the ground. Period.
Wrestlers aren’t going to be able to beat him because he’s the strongest and while not the best skill wise he is still top level. Nobody is keeping Brock Lesnar on his back.
If he spends the proper amount of time with some good submission guys he will be incredibly hard to beat.
Note: I had never even heard of Brock Lesnar until there were talks of him fighting MMA. Don’t think of me as one of the Pro Wrestling idiots who think he will be an MMA star just because he was a wrestling star.