By:  Joe B. Skotzou

It is easy to get intrigued by Bobby Lashley. Three months into mixed martial arts and off he goes getting compared to one of the sports’ biggest crowd-drawers, Brock Lesnar. In a sense, simply because he comes from where Lesnar was, he gets to be talked about more compared to other newbies. Now, that’s what we call lucky.

Popularity could be a pain in the a*^@#.

When a newbie comes and gets to be talked about a lot, the general direction would mostly be for some MMA fans to try to put him down. “He’s a wrestler. He comes from that fake sport of fake actors.” Remember how Brock Lesnar was met with wryness? In a sense, one is guilty of being a loser until he proves it otherwise. In a sense, this disparagement makes it more difficult for a newbie to move around. It is easier to work yourself upwards when everyone’s looking somewhere else, than having pot shots thrown at you while you fight your way up.

MMA is still show business.

Whoever gets more attention –more media mileage, is one step ahead of the rest of the flock. Now, it is up to him to show the denizens within and outside the octagon that there is something worth talking about. And he has to show his mettle fast, lest his “promising newbie” status becomes just another flash in the pan. And the 6-foot one former EWC champion seems to be doing well at this.

First match passed with flying colors.

His debut exposure at the cage (MFA: There Will Be Blood) was explosive with that less-than-a-minute knock-out win over Joshua Franklin. Massively muscled like a raging bull, he charged like a lithe pit bull to pick up Franklin and slam him to the ground. Who said wrestlers are supposed to be slow? "I learned how to move with a faster pace of training when I was small, and I was able to keep going at that pace as I got bigger and kept growing,” Lashley said.

Second match was not without its share of excitement.

Lashley, without trying to, seems to have brought with him professional wrestling’s flair for drama. The pre-fight trash-talk he got from Jason Guida was a good example of how you stir interest to a match. And nothing is more media-frenzy friendly than two protagonists on the verge of slugging it out during a press-con.

"He played a lot of head games before the fight," Lashley said, referring to the trash-talk thrown on him by Guida. Lashley admitted that Guida “screwed with his head” when the latter said, "You've been faking this for how long? Tell'em, let'em know. How long's it been since you trained hard? How long has it been since you squared up against someone who's going to hit you on the chin and not pull a punch?"

Fortunately, he was able to keep his game for this fight. The former wrestling champion is now 2-0 to help appease the usual naysayers who oppose professional wrestlers dipping their toes in the now more popular world of mixed martial arts.

Indeed, Bobby Lashley is a promising add to the world of mixed martial arts. Let us not forget the new faces (and fat pockets) he brings to MMA: he’s got a large following that he brought with him from the (fake) world of wrestling. Remember, this is show business too.

MMA, like any other spectator sport, is all about putting them arses on chairs.

By Joe B. Skotzou

Welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre comes in as one the three best pound-for-pound fighter in polls, next only to heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko and middleweight champion Anderson Silva. B.J. Penn, on the other hand is a great lightweight who entered the octagon a lot lighter at 20 lbs, and smaller than the formidable St. Pierre, who is comfortable at 187 against Penn’s forced 168 pounds.

The “Prodigy,” who has been eyeing the much lucrative welterweight (more bigger-named fighters and bigger purses) has been neglecting his advantage in the lightweight division. The devastation he suffered from St. Pierre must have brought him back to his senses: get back to where he is king – the lightweight division.

While it can be said that B.J. Penn worked harder and trained himself like he never did before anywhere during his entire career, it was not enough to realize his dream of being the first dual-titled mixed martial arts warrior.

St. Pierre came more mentally prepared with his game plan. The first round was to tire him down, and the game was stopped by ref Herb Dean, the ringside physician and by Penn’s corner at the end of the fourth round. The devastation was so…devastating that Penn has to be rushed to the hospital later.

A slight controversy threatened to mar St. Pierre’s win when one of his cornermen rubbed Vaseline to his body (which fight officials corrected by having the slippery substance towelled off St. Pierre’s body). While it was obvious that the Vaseline-rubbing did not have any bearing on St. Pierre’s win, Dana White maintained it was wrong and said the cornerman involved (Phil Nurse) shouldn’t be allowed to corner another fighter again.

St. Pierre did not only come to this fight bigger and heavier (not a guarantee to a win) but he also came with a better game plan, “My strategy was that he has small shoulders, which is good for hand speed, so I went to make him carry my weight and cause his shoulders to tire,” said St. Pierre. “You’ll notice I didn’t rush him right away going for the takedown (his style in his last few matches),” he added. “The idea was to cause him to have to hop on one leg and get tired, and push off, having to carry my weight in the clinch. That was the idea in the first round…… I knew I broke him mentally after the first round.”

St. Pierre, who earned $420,000 in this fight (excluding his share for the pay-per-view earnings), could boast of being a part of one of the biggest pay-per-view draws in mixed martial arts at more than 900,000. To give you a better perspective, the December 2008 Oscar de la Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao tiff drew 1.25 million PPVs (tied-in with the Mike Tyson vs. Razor Ruddock battle in 1991). UFC president Dana White must be ecstatic. Gate sales went as high as $4.3 million.