Heavyweight Nonsense

The UFC can be a very weird organization.

Keep in mind as I explain what I mean that the people there desperately want to be taken seriously as a sport. Somehow, I don't think they know what that means.

Back in 2008, the UFC Heavyweight Championship was won by Brock Lesnar. Going into that fight, his record was an unimpressive 2-1. However, the UFC was in love with him, and the champ at that time was an ancient dinosaur who fought in exactly the manner made to be beaten by Lesnar. Why did they want him to win the belt so badly, even though he's only ever fought 3 times, and they were all hand picked for his success, and he still managed to lose to one of those guys.

He looks like a killer fighter, for one thing. He's massive, and muscular, and athletic. The other reason is that he is a big deal in professional wrestling, and they desperately wanted to draw in all that cross-viewership.

So he won, and they fed him a string of challengers made for precisely his style of fighting. His record grew to 5-1. Then I don't know if the UFC started believing their own nonsense, or if they finally bowed to pressure, and had Lesnar defend against one of the division elite, Cain Velasquez in 2010, who knocked him out cold in the first round.

Lesnar tried to make a comeback, was defeated again in the first round by, this time by Alistair Overeem, and then went back to professional wrestling. His entire mma career was 5-3

While this was all going on, there was another fighter that the UFC desperately wanted to recruit into their heavyweight division. His name was Fedor Emelianenko. He is Russian, and back in 2008 his record stood at 29-1-1, and was considered by many to be the best fighter in the world. He, however, had a vastly inflated opinion of his own financial value to the UFC, and the negotiations dragged on and on.

To the UFC, matching Emilianenko and Lesnar was some kind of Holy Grail matchup.

They kept talking throughout Brock Lesnar's title reign, no agreement being reached. Then, in the middle of 2010, the Russian lost. Disaster. He lost his next fight as well, and then the one after that.

Emilianenko tried to rebuild, with a trio of fights against questionable opposition through 2010 and 2011. Although winning all three, he retired. After all, he was 36 years old and clearly past his prime. Also, the UFC Heavyweight Crown had passed from the beatable Lesnar into much more dangerous hands.

Last year, Emilianenko returned, and finished off a third-rate fighter in Japan.

Talks with the UFC have resumed, and this time seem much more on-track and focused. Also, magically, Brock Lesnar has been coaxed away from good, old, fake wrestling again, and will be fighting in less than a month. His opponent will be a decent guy named Mark Hunt. Although not bad, he is, like most of Lesnar's other opponents, perfectly hand-picked to lose.

It's pretty obvious what the big-shots in the UFC have been thinking. However, I can't understand why.

Let's see.

Lesnar was a good amateur wrestler, but hasn't been involved in that for 16 years. Other than his short 5-3 career in the UFC, he's been a professional playfighter. Fedor, on the other hand was a great fighter in his time, but at the ripe old age of 39, that boat has clearly sailed.

Nothing could have made this clearer than the fight June 17th between Emilianenko, and a nobody named Fabio Maldonado. Maldonado's record going into the fight was 22-9, and he was on a two-fight losing streak. He was also significantly smaller than Fedor.

Anyhow, Fabio proceeded to beat the living daylights out of Fedor in the first round. The fight should have been stopped several times, but the referee just didn't seem to notice anything amiss. Somehow, Emilianenko survived the round, but just barely. The second round was close, as Fabio clearly was exhausted by all the pounding he'd done earlier. Likely Fedor won that round, as he clearly did in the third. However, Fedor Emilianenko is the President of the Russian MMA Union that provided the judges. Even so, one of them got it right, giving Fabio the first round by two points, and Fedor the other two, and called it a draw. The other two judges magically saw the first round as a one-point round, and the other two rounds as one-point rounds for Fedor. He was awarded the victory.

A most embarrassing win.

This is the guy the UFC is trying to bring into their organization.

Or at least they did. I can't see how they can do so now.

However, stranger things have happened in the UFC.

In any case, the Brock Lesnar return bout will still be happening. I only hope that the 5'10" Mark Hunt (12-10-1) kicks the snot clear out of the 6'3" Lesnar (5-3) and puts and end to it all.