November 19, 2015
By Ryan Porzl
On October 2015, former UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar appeared on "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's podcast and made the claims that he was serious about making a comeback to MMA earlier this year along with saying that if not for his illness than he would still be very successful in MMA. While there has been speculations among journalist and fans with many believing that Lesnar would still be successful and dominant if it wasn't for his bouts with diverticlitis, I'm not one of them. Illness or not, Lesnar would not have had continued success MMA and I will explain why Lesnar's claims are nothing more than a pipe dream while he was never meant to be long for the MMA World.
First thing to look at is one that Lesnar nor his fans will ever admit which is that his opponents during his "prime" were stylistically great fits for him. Styles make fights and Lesnar heavily benefited from favorable matchmaking with his opponents either being well past their prime or who's weaknesses were Lesnar's strengths. While UFC does have great fighters, they have shown in the past to put golden boys with good opponents but ones who stylistically were perfect and allowed them to look elite. Both Chuck Liddell and Anderson Silva are two great examples. Chuck Liddell was always a fighter who had takedown defense, was able to get up whenever he was taken down, great chin, and good striker with knockout power. Well, from the time Zuffa bought the UFC in January 2001 to his loss to Quinton "Rampage" Jackson in May 2007, Liddell mostly fought grapplers with little striking skills in the UFC. The only exceptions were Vitor Belfort and Amar Suloev. His other opponents during this period were Kevin Randleman, Murilo Bustamante, Renato "Babalu" Sobral two times, Randy Couture three times, Tito Ortiz two times, and Jeremy Horn who are all great fighters but all were the same which was grapplers with little striking skills. There was Vernon White as well who wasn't a grappler but was winless in the three fights leading up to Liddell. Even fighters like Couture and Ortiz needed to use their wrestling before striking as Couture used his grappling to pin opponents to the fence so he can use his dirty boxing while Ortiz used his wrestling to take opponents down and work them over with gound and pound. These guys were perfect for Liddell as he blocks their takedowns or quickly gets back up thus taking away their most powerful weapons and then he forces them to stand up at which point he knocks them out. Anderson Silva was another one. Despite the UFC telling us what an amazing striker he was in his prime and that he does stuff you see in movies, Silva never fought many technical or prestigious strikers who had great backgrounds in boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, or karate. In fact, outside of Belfort, Silva never fought any real striker. He either fought fighters who swung for the fences with wild haymakers (Leben, Griffin, and Bonnar), fighters with power but not much techinque (Henderson), or grapplers with little striking (Lutter, Leites, Maia, Sonnen, and Okami). That's nothing against either fighter as both are great legends but their strengths were their opponents weaknesses. The point I'm trying to make is the UFC isn't immune to giving fighters favorable opponents or matching fighters based on styles.
So that brings us back to Lesnar. If you look at Lesnar's first four fights in the UFC, the opponents were perfect stylistically for him. While people praise this period as his prime, a lot of his success can be attributed to the fact that his strengths were his opponents weaknesses. Frank Mir, Heath Herring, and Randy Couture are great wins but when you dig deep at their weaknesses and where each fighter was in that period of their careers, you'll see that Lesnar rise to the top wasn't as tough as some would think. In fact, you could argue him facing Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, and Shane Carwin as they were climbing the top a more difficult route to the title. First there's Frank Mir. Mir is a great fighter and a UFC legend but look where he was at heading into the first Lesnar fight. He had a very lackluster 2006 by going 1-2 while trying to come back from his motorcycle accident. He had one fight in 2007 where he beat Antoni Hardock at UFC 74 where the UFC, fans, and journalist consider this Mir and his career rising from the ashes like a phoenix and the start of a career renaissance. However, while Mir would go to have a lot of success in the years after the fight, was the Hardock fight a real sign that he was "back"? Nothing personal to Antoni Hardock but is beating him really great? At the time of the fight, he was 5-3 with only one notable win which was over 2 Hot 2 Handle and M-1 Global tournament winner Ibragim Magomedov. Other than that, never beat anyone of note, didn't lose to elite competition (before the Mir fight), never won or challenged for a major championship, and never won a big tournament. Another thing about Mir is that while it wasn't known at the time, he's a tailor made opponent for Lesnar as he's historically proven to struggle greatly with wrestlers. Since the Lesnar fights, Mir has lost time and time again to wrestlers or grapplers who out wrestle him and either stuff him into the fence or clinch him to the fence. Examples include Shane Carwin, Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett, and Alistair Overeem who all out wrestled him or bulled him into the cage and clinched with him. Even his recent fight with Arlovski saw it as Mir tried to clinch with him on the octagon only for Arlovski to, at times, counter and put Mir to the octagon.
Then there's Heath Herring. First of all, Herring was a replacement of the returning Mark Coleman. The thought of Lesnar fighting Coleman in 2008 even if it was his third fight borders on freak show. Originally set for UFC 87 on August 9, 2008, Coleman was set to go into that fight at 43 years old and not having fought in 22 months as his previous fight was against Fedor Emelianenko at PRIDE 32: The Real Deal back on October 21, 2006. Along with these setbacks, Coleman was also smaller than Lesnar and would be giving away 40-60 pounds when the fight took place. Even worse is besides the age, layoff, weight disadvantage, and strength disadvantage, the question is, what was Coleman going to do in that fight? Coleman is pretty much a smaller Lesnar in that he's a very talented but one dimensional wrestler. His whole thing is taking opponents down and raining down gound and pound. How was he going to out wrestle Lesnar? How would he take him down and control him to the point where he could win on ground and pound or at least go fifteen minutes and earn a judges decision? Unless Lesnar suffered an injury during the fight, Coleman would have no way to win. As for Herring, he was well past his prime. At one time, Herring was one of the biggest heavyweights in the world as he won tournaments in World Vale Tudo Championship and the Bas Rutten Invitational while also making it to the finals in another World Vale Tudo Championship tournament and the semifinals in a Superbrawl tournament plus challenging for the PRIDE World Heavyweight Championship. However, those days were very long ago by 2008 and Herring was a shell of his former self. When he left PRIDE in the end of 2004, Herring was 25-10 MMA and 12-5 in PRIDE. He scored great wins over the likes of Tom Erikson, Enson Inoue, Mark Kerr, Igor Vovchanchyn, Gan McGee, and first ever King of Pancrase Heavyweight Champion Kazuo Takahashi while his five losses were to the best of the best in Vitor Belfort, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira twice, Fedor Emelianenko, and Mirko Cro Cop. He also was a PRIDE World Heavyweight Title contender as he first fought Nogueira to crown the inaugural champion. His post PRIDE run was terrible as he went 3-4 and 1 no contest. His K-1 HERO'S run was 1-1 with 1 no contest as he lost to kickboxer Sam Greco due to injury, went a no contest with Yoshihiro Nakao when both committed fouls after Nakao kissed Herring and Herring sucker punched him during instructions. His only win was over a washed up Gary Goodridge. Upon his entrance into the UFC, he was expected to add some depth to the heavyweight division but leading to the Lesnar fight, he was batting .500. He lost his debut in an upset to the unknown Jake O'Brien then scored a win over The Ultimate Fighter 2 contestant Brad Imes then suffered a third loss to Big Nog and barely got by Cheick Kongo. Following his loss to Lesnar, Herring disappeared and quietly retired.
Finally, there's Randy Couture. Now, Couture is easily the biggest name Lesnar has defeated in his brief MMA career and for good reason as beating Couture is a great achievement. Unfortunately, when you look at it more closely, it's seems like another freak show fight. Going into the fight which took place at UFC 91 on November 15, 2008, Couture was 45 years old and had not fought in nearly fifteen months (a successful title defense against Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74 on August 25, 2007). Even though Couture was known for being competitive into his 40s and proven doubters as well as critics wrong, he's still human. Couture was also a fighter who relied on his wrestling whether it be to use it to take down opponents and beat then with ground and pound or by clinching them to the octagon and wear them down with dirty boxing. Also, Couture would be going into the fight at 220 pounds which meant he would be giving up 40-60 pounds. Basically, it was Mark Coleman all over again. While Couture has better striking, he's still a wrestler and the question is how will he be able to use it against a man bigger, stronger, and heavier while having a great wrestling pedigree? Lesnar even said it best when he said that Couture has been able to control a lot of people because he's a great wrestler but he won't be able to control him. So these were Lesnar's first three opponents in the UFC. I'll later go into his other fights and pull the curtain back as I explain what really was Lesnar's downfall.
Second issue Lesnar had that would prevent long term success was in his training. After training for his early fights at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy, Lesnar started his own gym called Death Clutch which was designed so Lesnar didn't have to leave home. Though considered a gym, it was more or less Lesnar bringing in coaches and sparring partners to prepare for fights. While others trained there, it was about Lesnar, first and foremost. One big problem with this was a clear sign that Lesnar wasn't willing to do whatever it took to improve. Usually, fighters that fly sparring partners and coaches in doesn't work well anymore. If a fighter truly wants to evolve, they need to set up camp at a great gym where they'll have some of the best coaches and sparring partner to really push them. As long as Lesnar wasn't willing to leave home and spend time at a great gym that can push him, he was never going to evolve as a fighter. It reminds me of Mirko Cro Cop or Gabriel Gonzaga. There's reasons why they've struggled or never took that next step. Cro Cop even admitted when he brought Stipe Miocic in for his training that he saw a big difference in his training as he actually got to spar with a MMA fighter as opposed to doing one dimensional sparring with a kickboxer and then a brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. Gonzaga also had a chance to remain a top fighter but the fact is, he never took that next step cause he trains at his gym which doesn't have the trainers or sparring partners he needs to evolve which is why he's not been close to the title since he challenged for it in 2007. Lesnar's situation also reminds me of Joe Rogan previewing Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock where he brought up Ortiz training with guys that could push him while Shamrock was training with his students. He also brought up that if fighters don't keep training with people that can push them then they start believing they're better than they really are. In the end, this proved to be true as Lion's Den fighters claimed that Shamrock wasn't taken down once during training yet Ortiz had no problem taken Shamrock down during their first encounter. Lesnar was in the same boat as he didn't have the sparring partners to push him and he likely started to believe he was better than he really was.
Another problem with the training was who Lesnar was surrounding himself with. His team consisted of Pat Barry, Jon Madsen, Mike Russow, Cole Konrad, and Chris Tuchscherer who were all solid but outside possibly Konrad, none of these guys could be considered anywhere near elite. At most, they were all gatekeepers and since iron sharpens iron, Lesnar wasn't going to take his game to the next level with these guys. Another problem was that outside of Barry who was mostly a striker, all these guys were the same as they were all wrestlers with wrestling backgrounds. Brendan Schaub once compared the gym to Mark Coleman's and it was. Essentially, Death Clutch was nothing more than a modern day Team Hammer House as it was mostly wrestlers rolling around. Sure, Barry was a striker but he wasn't an elite level striker so how were these guys going to teach or help Brock learn things he didn't know before? Even worse is the fact that his gym was beginning to fall apart before Lesnar even retired and every fighter has since either left MMA or have taken time off. Chris Tuchscherer quietly retired after being released from the UFC following his loss to Mark Hunt at UFC 127 on February 27, 2011. Jon Madsen took a three year break from MMA after he was released from the UFC after losing to teammate Mike Russow at UFC Fight Night: Nogueira vs. Davis on March 26, 2011. So heading into his last fight with Overeem at UFC 141 on December 30, 2011, Lesnar lost two of his guys and even if he continued to fight, it wouldn't get any better. Cole Konrad, who had the best potential at of them all while probably being the only elite sparring partner of Lesnar, announced his retirement in September 2012. Mike Russow followed as he hasn't competed since his UFC release following a loss to Shawn Jordan at UFC on FOX: Johnson vs. Dodson on January 26, 2013 despite having signed with the World Series of Fighting. Finally, Pat Barry retired after being released from the UFC after losing to Soa Palelei at UFC Fight Night: Hunt vs. Bigfoot on December 7, 2013. Since then, Barry has left Minnesota and moved to Colorado to train at Grudge Training Center while returning to kickboxing. So even if Lesnar stuck around, who would he have to train with? Him sticking around wouldn't change anything as these guys would likely still retire or take time off. This huge turnover would do more harm for Lesnar as he would now have to spend time finding new guys to train with. However, all the elite fighters were already had places to go and weren't going to sacrifice weeks and months out of their time to fly to Minnesota to train Lesnar. Honestly, Lesnar's training also reminds me of The Untouchables movie when Sean Connery asks Kevin Costner if he really wants to get Al Capone and what is he prepared to do? Same with Lesnar. He talks about losing the prime years because of his illness but the fact of the matter was that he wasn't as committed as he and his fans would believe. The fact he wanted a gym and team built around him so he didn't leave home makes me want to ask him if he really wanted to regain the UFC Heavyweight Championship and what was he prepared to do? In the end, he wasn't willing to put his soul into it as he wasn't willing to make sacrifices and leave his comfort zone. Nobody wants to leave home or family & friends to spend two months training but they do it because they want to be the best.
Then there is the arrivals and returns to the heavyweight division. In 2012, immediately after Lesnar's retirement, the UFC absorbed the Strikeforce heavyweight division which gave them Fabricio Werdum again along with Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva and Daniel Cormier. Then Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett eventually returned by 2014. Finally, there has been prospects like Travis Browne and Stipe Miocic who have also enjoyed success even if they're not at that elite level yet. Combined all of them with Cain Velasquez, Junior Dos Santos, and Alistair Overeem and you have a heavyweight mountain that would be difficult for Lesnar to climb back to the top. While there's possibilities of Lesnar beating some of them, most would make Lesnar have a miserable time. Velasquez, Dos Santos, and Overeem were already bad match ups for Lesnar since they had good enough grappling to block Lesnar's takedowns and/or quickly get back up which meant Lesnar would lose his one and only weapon all the while being worked over with striking. You also had Werdum who was a world champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu which negates Lesnar's biggest strength as he lives and dies off his wrestling but taking Werdum down means you have a great chance of getting caught with a submission. If Werdum can submit Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and Cain Velasquez then he should be able to catch Lesnar as well. Not to mention that Werdum has made big improvements with his striking as well. Then there's Barnett who is also dangerous to go to the ground with and despite not having the best striking skills, he should still have enough to keep the fight standing if he wanted and pick Lesnar apart. Arlovski has a good ground game, hand speed, and striking. While Arlovski's chin isn't the best, Lesnar isn't known for one punch knockout power. While Lesnar could exploit some of Bigfoot's weakness like his weak chin and work him over on the ground like Velasquez, Bigfoot has pulled off upsets more than once. Miocic has a good background in wrestling and boxing while Browne could do to Lesnar what he did to Gonzaga and Barnett which is rain down elbows during take down attempts until Lesnar backs off or is out. Now I'm not saying Lesnar would lose to everyone but him having the same success he had during 2008-2010 would've been very difficult. While there is an argument to be made that not all these fighters have been active all the time as Velasquez & Barnett missed all of 2014 while Bigfoot was out for most of it and Dos Santos only fought once. Then there was Overeem's failed test in 2012 which saw him miss the entire year while Cormier moved down to Light Heavyweight in 2014. However, it's unknown if Lesnar's could've capitalized on these things as we don't know where Lesnar would be in these situations. It's possible he could've suffered bad injuries or had a contract dispute.
A fourth reason is the most obvious one to MMA fans who know Lesnar which is he doesn't like to get hit in the face. Don't get me wrong, nobody likes to get hit but Lesnar is one of those people who mentally can't take a punch to the face. He showed it repeatedly in his fights and it eventually became known that he would often instruct his sparring partners not to hit him in the face during training. Unless Lesnar was able to mentally get over this then he had no chance to succeed. In combat sports, fighters are expected to take shots to the face since they're going to be hit there a lot. Lesnar can't have long term success in MMA if he isn't capable of mentally taking shots to the face because he's going to take them sooner or later and the last thing he needs is to look good in a fight only to mentally shut down when his opponent begins to tee off. Even worse is that everybody began to notice it was Lesnar's achilles heel which meant his opponents would always target there which would make things even tougher for Lesnar to win fights. Everybody has weaknesses but Lesnar's weakness was as glaring as it could be.
Going back to Lesnar's training, another thing holding him back was he was in a comfort zone. Usually, many fighters who want to take that next level or return to greatness have to leave home and/or their state/country. With Lesnar at home with his friends and family, there's a possiblity they could be a distraction. Usually, when fighters are training or backstage before a fight, they need to be away from the distractions and focused. Leaving the state or country allows a fighter to solely focus on training since they have nothing else to do or focus on. It also allows them to leave a comfort zone which can toughen them mentally. Then there's the case that Death Clutch was Lesnar's gym and he hired all the trainers & sparring partners while deciding who would train there so he was the boss and that's a problem. Who's going to push the boss? Who's going to tell the boss to do 20 push ups when he wants to do 10? As I mentioned, it's been documented that Lesnar would tell sparring partners not to hit him in the face. Since he's the boss, no one will argue or do it. Even if repeated hits to the face can possibly help him get over that fear, no one will do it if he says no. By going to other gyms, the coaches and sparring partners would take Lesnar out of that comfort zone. If he doesn't want to get hit, they'll tell him too bad and do it or tell him to leave since he's has to go through it eventually.
Now, as far as what really led to Lesnar's downfall was the fact he was exposed among the reasons I've mentioned. Just as fighters like Frank Mir, Heath Herring, and Randy Couture were great stylistic fights for Lesnar, the exact opposite was the case of Shane Carwin, Cain Velasquez, and Alistair Overeem. Unlike Mir, none of these guys had wrestling weaknesses while Carwin and Velasquez had great wrestling backgrounds with Carwin being a former NCAA Division II Champion and Velasquez being a former two time NCAA Division I All-American. While Overeem didn't have a wrestling background, he was a good grappler in his own right as he was the 2005 Abu Dhabi Combat Club European Trials Winner. Unlike Herring, none of them were long past their prime while Carwin and Velasquez had only had around 10 fights while Herring had over 40 fights and none had shown decline leading to the Lesnar fight or taking a fight on short notice. Unlike Randy Couture, none of them were 45 years old, coming off a 15 month lay off, and giving away 40-60 pounds. If you watch all three fights, then you can see Lesnar's downfall was he was exposed. He couldn't use his wrestling and he had no Plan B (though he did beat Carwin after Carwin gassed out). When you watch the Velasquez fight over, you can tell that the moment Velasquez was able to get back up that it was game over. Sure enough, Lesnar didn't have any other tricks, he couldn't rely on Velasquez getting tired, and proceeded to get humiliated as he started running away once Velasquez started making contact on Lesnar's face. Lesnar was again exposed in the Overeem fight as he tried one takedown, couldn't get it, and proceeded to get teed off on while giving a "I don't want to be here anymore" vibe. When Lesnar took on opponents like Mir, Herring, and Couture, he was a "bad dude" as his strengths were their weaknesses. Once the difficulty got increased, Lesnar was in over his head.
Another reason for Lesnar's downfall is one everybody that follows MMA knows which is he doesn't like to get hit in the face. Let's face it, nobody really likes to get hit in the face but there's a difference between not liking it and being scared. Mark Kerr said it best in his documentary "The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr" when he said there's two reactions you can get from a punch which is either cower away from it or punish the person for punching you. Sadly, Lesnar does the former and that's bad. In the end, Lesnar can have the body, the talent, the athleticism, the best sparring partners, and the best coaches but if he mentally shuts down from punches to the face then it won't matter. Even if you can have everything, you can't properly utilize anything if you mentally shut down from a punch to the face.
Lastly, as far as diverticulitis goes, I have no doubt it's an awful illness but to blame it on ending Lesnar's career or preventing him from having a longer and dominant career is nothing more than a cheap cop out. Nothing against Lesnar but this is nothing different then what sports fans hear about all the time. Going into a fight or game, we hear the athlete talk about everything is great but when they lose, they pull out their rolodex of excuses and claim they were sick or hurt. Even when they win, they still make excuses as to why the fight wasn't one sided and why it was close. Then there are fans who claim that Lesnar's retirement was because it was life threatening for him to get hit in the stomach but if it was then the UFC and the athletic commission would never clear him or allow him to fight because that would be a huge scandal, a bad reputation, and lawsuits. Not to mention, doctors would never allow him to spar let alone train or fight in fear of him accidentally getting hit in the stomach. Another problem with the diverticulitis excuse is that Lesnar, his camp, and even The UFC were saying that, if anything, he was going to be better than ever after his bouts. Leading up to the fight with Carwin, we were told that Lesnar was only competing at a certain capacity during his peak but now he was going to be 100% (kind of like Frieza in Dragon Ball Z) and if he was able to accomplish this stuff at less than 100% then what will he be like at 100%? Dana White and Joe Rogan were pretty much telling us to be afraid, be very afraid. Then, leading up to the Overeem fight, Lesnar claimed that after having had surgery and time off that he was "refreshed", "got a second chance", and "totally revived". He also said when he was the UFC Heavyweight Champion that he wasn't healthy and just kept plugging away as his body fought it but claimed that now he got rid of the problem and felt like a new man. So to go from all of that to saying the illness was too much is hard to believe. I'm all for confidence in yourself and saying you'll fight hard to get back to the top but there's a difference between that and saying you're better than ever or others saying you're better than ever. Was Lesnar or his fans sure anyway that it was the illness? Remember, Lesnar went into the Overeem fight coming off a 14 month lay off which was the longest lay off he ever had and coming off a tough loss where he lost the title. It's hard to blame a performance on an illness when it could be more.
All in all, Lesnar had a short MMA career but one he could be proud of but given every thing I've laid out that he wasn't meant to have a long career regardless of his illness or not. Lesnar had enough skill and matchmaking to have early success but as the competition was getting harder and harder, he had too many issues to keep up in a sport that keeps evolving.
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