MMA has now risen to the level where it can set its matches on the same date with a boxing match as big as a Floyd Mayweather, Jr. headliner.

Go argue about which production “should” reap more PPV’s. Go argue which venue would fill to the rafters: the MGM Grand in fabulous Las Vegas or the double-A C in Dallas. It doesn’t change the fact that Dana White doesn’t see this as a problem anymore. And this says a lot!

It shows that MMA has finally thought it can take on its elder brother (boxing) in terms of PPV and ticket sales. It doesn’t matter which event gets the most PPV or ticket sales. It’s the thought – the bravado – that that matters. It says a lot about the organization’s growth.

MMA has reached that level of transcending its status as a pseudo-mainstream sport to something more popular. Famous athletes like Shaquille O’neal tweaks about joining the gladiators, but what is most telling is that MMA fighters like Randy Couture getting cast on a Stallone movie alongside the likes of Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Jason Statham, and Sly himself.

Take a load of this: Axe tapped George St. Pierre for its TV commercial ad; Fedor; Cro Cop; Jason “Mayhem” Miller; Wanderlei Silva and Mark Coleman (rubbing each other’s cheek!); even Kimbo Slice (for Norton Security) are enjoying their gigs as product endorsers here and in other countries.

It says a lot about MMA becoming a force to reckon with. Mainstream media and brand owners have now finally acknowledged the octagon warriors enough to trust them with the fate of their products.

What a way to go for a sport that was only played underground just a couple of years ago.

Fans of Randy Couture (including some of us here at MMA Weekly) were devastated. Sometimes, watching too much Hollywood flicks could be bad for the mental health of fans of mixed martial arts.

This is not Rocky Balboa fighting the humungous Russian Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in Rocky IV. Only in Hollywood would a Stallone vanquish a Lundgren. Fact is, while Stallone destroyed Lundgren on the widescreen, he was actually flown to a hospital and stayed in the intensive care for eight days when Dolph Lundgren hit him in the chest during one of the fight scenes. Even Carl Withers (who played Apollo Creed—a character based on Mohammad Ali) announced that he was quitting after a having too much of Lundgren’s punches during one of the shooting! Simple physics tells us about mass and the force that goes with it. The bigger the mass…

Now, this is mixed martial arts—the real thing. And we have our MMA hero Couture facing that large mass of muscles from a guy who hailed from another planet…planet WWE. We thought it was Hollywood, and Couture would always prevail. We were dead wrong.

Brock Lesnar is not your regular massive 265-pounds, 6 foot 3 MMA warrior (as if there’s anything regular about such size) he also moves swiftly in a manner that defies gravity. No baggage in that hulk of a physiology, baby, just pure unadulterated working muscles powered by equally huge doses of adrenaline of the octane kind.

Most of us must have this foreboding at the first seconds of the fight when we see how Lesnar’s size dwarfed Couture inside the octagon. It’s different when you compare stats, where you just play with figures of the fighters’ size and height in your head. Reality has a way of slapping us back to reality once we see the massive Lesnar hover over Couture. It wouldn’t have made any difference if only Lesnar doesn’t move with the agility of a 200-pound warrior.

Couture’s plan was to stay on his feet, perhaps to deprive Lesnar of the weight and size advantage if they grapple on the mat. However, this plan simply gives Lesnar more opportunities to land his power punches. It’s a conundrum. You avoid your opponent’s weight and size but as a consequence, you expose yourself to his power punches with a stand up game.

And one of the power punches hits its mark.

Lesnar just made the world of mixed martial arts more exciting with his colourful demeanor and demeaning bulk. We at MMA Weekly say, he’s bringing the showmanship and drama that mostly accompanies the then highly patronized WWE.

UFC, and MMA in general, may not be Hollywood, but it can learn from the way it promotes itself.

Check out the MMA weekly table below, we could clearly see that this is an ultimate test for “The Natural.”  Lesnar’s time will come, but this bout is all about Couture.   All the drama of Stallone’s surprise “Rocky” reprise, and the bloody breath-taking grandeur of Russel Crowe’s “Gladiator” fight scenes COULD all be rendered puny by UFC91 on November 15, 2008 (barring any repeat of the Kimbo-Petrucelli 14-second letdown).  That’s just five days from the day we posted this!

This is quite an intriguing scenario: is Randy Couture’s superior skills, brought about by his more than a decade of fighting experience, going to be more than enough to compensate for the wear and tear his body must have been enduring from more than a decade of punishment?

Besides that, Couture hasn’t seen a real fight for the past 15 months, while Lesnar has been busy with two bouts this year alone, the latest being barely three months ago.  Ring rust!

Couture says, he’s got his own gym, his stable of warriors (Forrest Griffin, et al) that he can pick to fight with every week.  He might not have gone up the octagon with all the klieg lights, but his gym’s ring is just about as real as anywhere in the world–with or without the cameras and ring announcers.

Couture’s buddy, Matt Lindland believes that if Couture would just keep Lesnar’s power puches in early rounds at bay, he could make use of his ground and pound stopping power.  Those pro-Couture say he toppled Sylvia, so he can demolish Lesnar just the same.  However, let us not forget that while Sylvia’s kickboxing was no match to Couture’s ground game, Lesnar could give a better match considering that he too is a wrestler—and a bigger one at that.

That could make all the difference in the world.

  

 

Less than two weeks and the mma weekly team will all go the biggest fight in UFC history, the Randy Couture vs. Brock Lesnar face-off.  And don’t you start grumbling about not having the Couture vs. Fedor fight.  It’s a dream fight alright, but Fedor still has to settle contract matters with Affliction.  And, if Dana White is to be believed, it won’t be long now.  White said, “I would be horrified if Affliction was still in business by January.”  That settles it then.

Now back to the Couture vs. Lesnar dream fight.

It’s going to be held on November 15, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.  That’s less than 3 weeks before the biggest boxing event featuring boxing legends Oscar de la Hoya and people’s champ Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao.  Another event that’s sure to burn a hole in my pocket!

OK, back to the Couture vs. Lesnar dream fight.  This time…really!

Dana “it’s good to be” White is rubbing his palms now as he counts millions, “The thing is going to do over a million pay per view buys” as fans would jockey for the best view of the 5-found UFC heavyweight championship.  The eventual winner will take on the winner of the Frank Mir vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogeira tiff which is also expected to be a great bout.  Sorry dudes, no matchup with Fedor yet.

The Mir-Nogueira fight is for the UFC Interim Heavyweight championship which will be held in December.  If we get lucky, we may have the Couture-Fedor dream fight early next year—that is, if Couture doesn’t suddenly decide to succumb to old age.

We can never tell.  He may get some heavy beating from the largely larger foe in Lesnar who 13 years younger,  and  is 40 lbs bigger than Couture’s 224 lbs when he goes inside the octagon less than two weeks from now.

However, “The Natural,” who has been away for quite some time, was actually busy retooling his game.  Remember  March 2007?  When people said he just couldn’t make a win happen with someone as big as Tim Sylvia, and he proved everyone wrong?  Today, the same story is being rehashed, but with a different character.  This time, it is with a much younger, more formidable-looking phenomenon called Brock Lesnar.

“The Natural” has actually been very busy sharpening his skills.  He has been simulating his fight with Brock Lesnar,, “I brought Josh Hendricks in:  He’s actually fighting on the same card against Gabe Gonzaga…He’s a 245-pound guy with a wrestling background…. I’ve got guys like Mike Whitehead and a bunch of other guys that walk around 240, 250 with good, solid wrestling backgrounds… We’ve got a good crew.  They’re pushing me and ganging up on me.  It’s hard to find guys like Brock that are that size and move the way he moves.”

Now, this is going to be exciting.