5 Burning Questions after Brock Lesnar’s UFC title win
Published by Zach Arnold on November 18th, 2008 in Current Events

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Everyone and their mother knows now that Brock Lesnar, former WWE champion, won the UFC Heavyweight title by defeating Randy Couture last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Lesnar’s size and strength was simply too much for Couture to handle. Interestingly enough, I received a few messages from people around the MMA industry who were amused by Lesnar’s win, saying that it proved that MMA is basically a landscape where washed up ex-wrestlers can go and win titles. Not that we’re on board with that line of thought necessarily, but Brock Lesnar’s UFC title win certainly raises a lot of questions. We’ve decided to limit the questions we are going to ask to the five most important issues coming out of the UFC 91 event.

At least, important to us, anyways. And that’s what we’re all about — selfishness.

1. Does a new weight class need to be added between Light Heavyweight (186-205 pounds) and Heavyweight (206-265 pounds)?

Our answer: Yes.

By the time Brock Lesnar got into the cage against Randy Couture, he had nearly a 60-pound weight advantage over his opponent. Does it take skill and power to win in an MMA fight? Sure. If size was the only important factor in MMA, then Zulu would have beat Fedor a few years ago in the PRIDE ring. With that said, given UFC’s current weight-class structure, it is time to add a new weight class. In no other separation of weight classes is there as big of a discrepancy as there is between Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight. The result? Many fighters who naturally walk around between 230-250 pounds are forced to either fight as a ’small’ heavyweight or have to make an extreme weight cut to fight at Light Heavyweight.

Lesnar, UFC’s Heavyweight champion, is naturally a Super Heavyweight. The same situation applied to Tim Sylvia as well. Sylvia’s size certainly played a major role in how long he was UFC Heavyweight champion.

Our suggestion — make the Heavyweight class from 206-240 pounds, Super Heavyweight 241-275 pounds, and an Absolute class 276 pounds or higher. While not a perfect solution, it would certainly help alleviate some huge weight differences in the current heavier weight classes.

2. How will the media look at MMA now that a former WWE champion is the UFC Heavyweight champion?

So far: Shockingly, without much criticism.

Lesnar’s raw athletic ability, combined with UFC’s excellent ability at convincing the general sports media that what they’re selling is the real deal, has turned a situation that would normally be called a ‘freak show’ into a viable storyline. Then again, anyone who takes one look at Brock Lesnar realizes what a legitimate athlete he is.

All of this is both good and bad news for Vince McMahon. It’s good news because every mainstream article is calling Lesnar “former WWE champion,” and yet at the same time Lesnr is being embraced because he ‘escaped’ the WWE world and went into something more respectable.

3. How much stress is Randy Couture under given the lawsuits filed against him and his latest business adventures? What kind of impact has it had on his career?

Our guess: It’s had some impact.

Ever since his contractual dispute with UFC, it seems Randy Couture has found himself facing one business distraction after another. What made Xtreme Couture such a popular gym brand was Randy’s image, and UFC was the promotional vehicle that helped propel his image. Once he vanished from UFC TV & PPV events, not as many people paid attention to what he was doing.

Then, there’s the whole dispute between the Couture camp and Affliction, which led to the resignation of Todd Beard from Affliction Inc.’s team. Now there’s a lawsuit against Couture by a production company who claimed that Couture stiffed them on money to produce a big public event.

We’re going to find out soon enough what the difference is between knowing how to promote yourself as opposed to actually running Couture Inc. This is why you see so many fighters let others handle their business affairs.

4. Will Brock Lesnar flake out while being UFC champion in the same manner in he flaked out both as a WWE star and as IWGP champion?

Our guess: Who knows?

The fact that we even ask to ask this question is ridiculous, but consider Lesnar’s track record. Was WWE champion, got frustrated and left the organization to try out for the Minnesota Vikings. He couldn’t make the Vikings, so he left that deal and went to become IWGP champion under the auspices of Antonio Inoki & Brad Rheingans. Lesnar reportedly didn’t like flying back and forth from Minnesota to Japan, so he flaked out on a title match against Hiroshi Tanahashi in Sapporo.

Yes, UFC pays Lesnar a lot of money. Yes, Lesnar makes a lot of money by training in the gym for a sporadic fight. However, is he going to get bored and disinterested in MMA soon like he has with other sports-related endeavors in the past?

5. Who would Brock Lesnar prefer to face next — Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira or Frank Mir?

Our guess: Lesnar probably doesn’t care either way. UFC would be interested in having a re-match with Lesnar and Mir, since Mir beat him the first time around and is a much better talker than Nogueira.

For as skilled as Nogueira is in BJJ, he will be at a big size disadvantage to Brock Lesnar. Will Lesnar be able to overpower him and finish him off unlike Bob Sapp in 2002? Nogueira’s body has taken a lot of punishment in MMA, so he’s not a ‘young’ 31-32 years old by any stretch of the imagination.

There’s a historical problem for Lesnar if he wants to face Mir in a revenge match. In UFC re-matches, the winner the first time around has approximately a 70% chance of winning the re-match.

It’s a six-in-one, half-a-dozen-in-the-other situation. So which fight would draw more money? A re-match with Mir, undoubtedly.