MMA Betting
LESNAR: DOES THE NEWCOMER HAVE ENOUGH?
By Charles Jay
I know that ideally, BROCK LESNAR would like to look upon his fight with FRANK MIR at UFC 81 as a stepping stone, where the hot prospect on his way to the top goes up against the fighter with the easily recognizable name that doesn’t have very much left.
But I don’t think Saturday’s night’s main event is going to fit that scenario to Lesnar’s liking.
Well, not exactly anyway.
Here are the odds from BetUS:
UFC 81 — Las Vegas
February 2
BROCK LESNAR -175
FRANK MIR +145
It is true that MIR, the +145 underdog in the BetUS MMA betting odds, has not been quite the same since he got into his September 2004 motorcycle accident, which took place during his tenure as UFC heavyweight champion. Indeed, Mir’s only had four fights since then, winning two of them. And he’s suffered a couple of early stoppages - to Brandon Vera and Marcio Cruz - that were disappointing, to say the least.
He’s not the same fighter who broke Tim Sylvia’s arm in UFC 48. He may not even be a serious contender anymore, despite the fact that the heavyweight division is not particularly deep. And Mir, who has a background in wrestling, may not be able to extract much of an edge there, against someone with the formidable amateur background (former NCAA champion) of Lesnar. I know that’s what Lesnar, who won the WWE heavyweight title on three different occasions after leaving the college ranks, is counting on. But for that to happen, Lesnar will have to be able to successfully take Mir down and put him quickly in a position to submit. Along the way he must avoid anything Mir attempts to do in the stand-up.
The problem for LESNAR, the -175 favorite at BetUS, who has spent his whole professional life in the choreographed pro wrestling business, is that Mir is in the mixed martial arts business. And it becomes a bit of a different world in that case. Lesnar’s MMA experience is so limited that it has encompassed only one fight, and against a weak substitute for the freakish 7′2″ kick-boxer, Choi Hong-man, who was slated to face him on K-1/Elite XC/Strikeforce’s big show at the L.A. Coliseum. Naturally, it didn’t last too long against the hand-picked opponent.
That is the complete extent of Lesnar’s background in professional MMA fighting.
Aside from an abortive attempt to make it with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Lesnar has not had much genuine competition in his life over the last six or seven years. And what he’s moving into is a platform where he can not win a battle by wrestling alone. In fact, it is a situation where he is confronting the kind of resistance he has never seen before.
We have had instances where athletes from other sports cross over into mixed martial arts. And it happens; after all, that’s where somebody like Randy Couture, a former NCAA wrestling champion, came from. But the success generally comes after a period of development and some apprenticeship. It doesn’t come right off the bat. These are not the old “Wild Wild West” days of the UFC, when almost no one knew what to expect when the contrasting styles collided. There is now a discipline called “mixed martial arts,” which requires one to be versed to some extent in just about everything. Let’s give Mir some credit for his experience in the MMA world, which goes back to 2001, and for his experience in the martial arts - period - which goes back to about the age of five.
Lesnar will take his lumps in the process of trying to become a world-class MMA competitor. And one of them is likely to come at the hands of the former heavyweight champion on Saturday night. We like the underdog.
JAY’S PLAY: LESNAR (+145) ***
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)
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