UFC 100 – All That Was Left Was The Crying (Brock Lesnar Vs. Frank Mir)
I wrote an article for Fanbase early this morning. Here’s part of the article:
On November 12, 1993, The Ultimate Fighting Championship debuted from McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. The show was built around an 8 man tournament to prove which fighting style was the best. In the end, Royce Gracie, the smallest guy fighting, won the tournament by using Brazillian jui-jitsu, which many US fans had never seen before.
Some 15 1/2 years and 130 UFC shows later, including shows that weren’t counted in the UFC numbering system, UFC 100 was here. The show was booked around Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir as a revenge match for the undisputed UFC Heavyweight title. The first fight took place in February of 2008 and it was Lesnar’s first UFC fight. He roughed up Mir in the first round before falling to a knee bar and tapping out in the middle of the first round. Lesnar lost the fight, but learned a very valuable lesson. In MMA, anything can happen. Even if you’re dominating the fight, one bad move and it could be the end of the road for you.
He used that lesson to his advantage in their rematch. The stakes were bigger and the pressure was on both men to main event the biggest show in UFC history. Lesnar immediately showed where his head was at when he didn’t tap gloves with Mir before the fight started. He objected to a lot of the trash talking Mir did to build up the fight and I’m sure he wasn’t amused when one of Mir’s training partners put on a muscle suit and pretended to act like a pro wrestling gorilla.
The guys traded a few leg kicks, but the fight went to the ground fairly quickly, where it stayed for the rest of the fight. In my opinion, Mir had to figure out a way to keep the fight standing, or else risk a pounding on the ground. He pretty much said the same thing in his post fight interview. But he couldn’t stop Brock’s take down or his ground and pound. In the first round, Brock laid on top of Mir with all of his 285 pounds and controlled Mir’s left wrist. This allowed him to continue punching Mir in the face with his own brick of a right hand. When the round ended, Mir’s face was covered in blood and it looked like his nose may have been broken. But he got up smiling as if to say that the fight was going exactly how he wanted. Not too many people were convinced.
At this point, I think Mir knew he was over-matched, but hoped that Lesnar would make another mistake. He almost did. Mir threw a hopping knee that blasted Lesnar in the head in the second round, but it was the only true blow Mir would land for the fight. Lesnar took him down again and simply started to pound Mir’s face in. Mir wasn’t able to fight back and referee Herb Dean stopped the fight.
After the fight, Lesnar got in Mir’s face and shouted at him as if to shove the trash talk back into his face. The crowd was booing his lack of sportsmanship and he decided to flip them the double bird. He then got on the mic and started to egg the crowd as if to tell everyone watching that he knew his role was to be the bad guy. He also took a swipe at one of the UFC’s biggest sponsors and said he was going to drink Coors Light rather than Bud Light.
At the press conference, Lesnar apologized for acting how he did and it’s been acknowledged that he and Dana had a talk after the fight about his lack of professionalism, but he probably did it while counting the money he’s going to make because of Brock’s future money drawing mannerisms.
You can read the rest of the article at Fanbase.
