Monday, September 28 1:01 pm PT: Humility is not a Brock Lesnar trademark. You get the sense he walked onto any football field or wrestling mat with the expectation he would be arrested for manslaughter.
“He’s a tough guy. He’s undefeated, but some of the guys he’s beaten aren’t worthy of having on your record,” Lesnar said. “He hasn’t fought anybody. He’s fought (Gabriel) Gonzaga, so I really think he’s 1-0.”
Intriguing logic. Carwin’s supporters might reply that victories over a 46-year-old Randy Couture and 3-6 Min Soo Kim don’t exactly constitute the greater glory. But this is Lesnar’s stock: the ornery jock dismissive of anyone else’s chances. The WWE stint may have been an athletic lowlight, but it taught him how to sell tickets.
Monday, September 28 12:01 pm PT: To what extent has Georges St. Pierre dismantled the welterweight division? Enough that Mike Swick and Dan Hardy are about to vie for a No. 1 contender’s slot on Nov. 14 at UFC 105 in Manchester, England. Try to control your adrenaline.
While the pulse doesn’t quicken at the thought of the matchup, there is virtually no one left for St. Pierre to fight. He has met -- and defeated -- every notable welterweight available in the UFC; only Strikeforce’s Jake Shields stands out as a potential problem.
Both Swick and Hardy have improved in bounds over the years, but it will be the hard sell of the season to convince anyone that either one has a shot against St. Pierre. There’s nothing wrong with a welterweight buffet for the champ, but someone with his talent and drive should be occupied with more formidable tests: Taking a year off to add size and return as a middleweight would be unprecedented. And exciting as hell.
Monday, September 28 10:40 am PT: Overshadowing his victory over kickboxing legend Peter Aerts this weekend in Seoul, South Korea, were Alistair Overeem’s engorged trapezius, pectoral, and bicep muscles. The man who had fought at 205 lbs. as recently as 2007 appeared to have been sculpted from Apoxy putty, looking as though he weighed a minimum 240-250 lbs. with a body-fat percentage in the single digits.
For a man who could do what he pleases with a syringe overseas, talk quickly turned to what, exactly, Overeem is doing to achieve that kind of physique. While it’s certainly possible to pack on that muscle naturally -- if mom and dad’s genes are hospitable to the cause -- it’s substantially more difficult to do when an athlete is engaged in the cardiovascular, catabolic demands of fight training. Several athletes have said that a camp frequently shaves 10-15 lbs. off of them. Adding 20-30 lbs. during one is some kind of feat.
Monday, September 28 9:47 am PT: Whenever Olympic-level grappler Daniel Cormier tied up with Gary Frazier on Friday, Frazier looked helpless. When distance allowed the two to strike, there was plenty of evidence that Cormier has a long, long way to go.
Cormier’s debut was on the undercard of Strikeforce’s Challenger Series event in Tulsa -- capped by Tim Kennedy defeating Zak Cummings in a gift-wrapped bout -- and Cormier paid for his impatience in getting to the ring by committing to film a fairly haphazard debut: wild, looping strikes from both men and long pauses when you could see the wheels turning. It brings questions over how up-and-coming the up-and-comers celebrated on this show should be. Cormier has a wealth of amateur wrestling experience, but only a few months’ worth of cross-training. Wondering whether a fight like that deserves coverage on a major cable station under a major umbrella is like wondering why no one is showing rough cuts of films on pay television.
Monday, September 28 8:42 am PT: You can spin the figures any way you like, but when it came time for combat sports fans to spend $50 on an event September 19, Rich Franklin had absolutely nothing on Floyd Mayweather.
According to a report filed by Kevin Iole of Yahoo -- with numbers both loosely and specifically quoted from Dana White and Golden Boy promoter Richard Schaefer -- Mayweather’s bout with Juan Manuel Marquez rung up one million purchases; the UFC allegedly did less than half that.
The victory stung White, who had made his own bed by repeatedly knocking the attractiveness of the boxing bout. White, like others, doubted Mayweather’s drawing power in the absence of Ricky Hatton or Oscar De La Hoya. But Mayweather is one of boxing’s craftiest self-marketers: stints on “Dancing with the Stars” and the WWE helped popularize his image as a personable tactician. On HBO’s “24/7” series, his boasts are so inflated that he’s got a fair number of people tuning in to see his mouthpiece go flying.
Mayweather works the system with a mouth as motorized as White’s: the difference is, we can watch him fight.
As previously noted in this space, Franklin is one of the UFC’s least effective pay-TV draws, while Mayweather is boxing’s current hot topic. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight. But with possible fights against Shane Mosley and Manny Pacquiao in 2010, it’s clear his brand is just as viable as the UFC’s.
Forrest Griffin has not had much use for media attention following a decisive loss to Anderson Silva August 8 in Philadelphia; he ran out of the cage and right into a (scheduled) marriage in Savannah, ignoring our morbid requests to verbalize his disappointment along the way.
Through the extreme affability of interviewer Dave Farra, he did permit MMA30.com to ask him about the bout, which he hasn’t spoken about publicly. And as it turns out, still hasn’t.
“I have no idea [what happened,]” Griffin said. “I was on ‘ludes. I don’t remember. What happened?”
Griffin added that he saw no need to address media after. “Anytime I lose a fight, that’s what I’m doing from now on….there’s nothing to say. It’s not about talking. I thought this was a fighting sport…it just gets old, people putting hopes and dreams on you, telling you they put money on you, ‘You’re my kid’s idol.’ I don’t want to hear that sh-t. Get Tom Brady on your kid’s wall.”
Telling any fighter you put money on him and trying to road-map a guilt trip is as lame as it gets, but there’s really no stopping kids from idolizing grown men who excel in sports. Athletes can resist it as much as they like, but unless Griffin would like to personally shove each juvenile fan of his into a mud puddle, he’s better off rolling with it.
