The Juggernaut MMA News Report 07.07.10: Lesnar's Comeback
Posted by Jonathan Solomon on 07.07.2010
The Juggernaut looks at Brock Lesnar's miraculous comeback and how well Cain Velasuqez matches up with him. Read on for more including who Chris Leben may be fighting, Strikeforce middleweight championship news and Silva/Sonnen hype!
How Do You Like Him Now?
Brock Lesnar's roller coaster ride came to a triumphant conclusion on Saturday night after he mounted and then submitted Shane Carwin to retain his heavyweight championship. For practically the entire first round, Carwin beat on Lesnar to the point nearly everyone watching either called for it to end or expected it to. However, Carwin tired out and his strikes lost power as he threw more. As you have heard a million times by now, Lesnar weathered the storm and made it to round two.
At the start of round two, Lesnar had a gigantic smile on his face. He was obviously feeling millions of emotions being back in the cage and surviving round one, but perhaps he realized that Carwin had nothing left. He did exactly what his corner told him, he took Carwin down, mounted him and choked him out. In fact, the Head & Arm triangle choke he used to win the fight, he learned specifically in the training camp for UFC 116.
Now we can look ahead to Brock's next title defense. He will defend against Cain Velasquez at a date to be determined in 2010 (with the winner then fighting the Junior dos Santos/Roy Nelson winner). The challenge posed to Brock is similar to the one he faced against Carwin, but certainly different. Cain Velasquez was an accomplished amateur wrestler and was compared to Brock Lesnar when their MMA careers kicked into high gear about the same time. Velasquez will not enter the cage at over 265 pounds, and will not be void of energy as the fight goes on. For years, Velasquez's name has been promoted by his team at the American Kickboxing Academy as the most dangerous fighter in MMA because of the combination of striking power, a great chin, dominant wrestling and an elite gas tank.
We now know Brock Lesnar can take a punch, in fact he showed that against one of the most powerful strikers in the division this past weekend. Lesnar's wrestling background has not been so elite in MMA thus far. We have seen him take down Frank Mir and Heath Herring at will. However, he did struggle to take Randy Couture and Shane Carwin down (he eventually was able to take Carwin down in round two).
We have not seen Velasquez take on a high-level wrestler in MMA up to this point. He did not need to take Big Nog down as he knocked him out, standing in just over two minutes. He was able to take down Ben Rothwell and Cheick Kongo at will but neither are known for their sprawling abilities.
As you can tell, the upcoming mega-fight between Lesnar and Velasquez will be another heavyweight war for the gold and both men give reasons why they should be considered the favorite. No doubt, Brock Lesnar will be the favorite heading in after his gutsy win at UFC 116.
In the night's co-main event, Chris Leben became a legitimate PPV star (more than five years since he became the first UFC TV star on TUF1) in his submission win over Yoshihiro Akiyama with seconds left in the fight. Round one saw Akiyama use his judo throws to send Leben flying around the cage. Chris Leben worked for a few armbars but was unsuccessful on each try. The second round was about more of the same with both men slugging it out with a judo throw mixed in. You could have scored the second round for either man and it would have been easy to believe (all three judges had Akiyama taking round one and Leben taking round two).
The fight ended after Akiyama put Leben on the mat with strikes, leading to the conclusion. Similarly to the Fedor/Werdum fight a week earlier, Akiyama was throwing strikes from the top and Leben caught him in a triangle submission, forcing the Japanese star to tap out with just 33-seconds remaining.
If the fight goes to a decision, the likely winner would have been Akiyama and if he takes a more careful approach after dropping Leben, he almost guarantees a win. However, he never took his foot off the pedal and tried to finish Leben throughout the final round, to his detriment. However, let's be frank here. Who expected Chris Leben to submit Yoshihiro Akiyama?
Leben challenged Wanderlei Silva after the fight, but it does not look like that fight will happen. Silva is still injured and will have knee surgery soon so he may not return to the octagon until 2011. Reportedly, Leben is one fight away from a title shot after beating Akiyama. The UFC has to find a new name for Leben to fight
Complete UFC 116 Results
Heavyweight Championship: Brock Lesnar def. Shane Carwin via 2nd Round Submission
Chris Leben def. Yoshihiro Akiyama via 3rd Round Submission
Chris Lytle def. Matt Brown via 2nd Round Submission
Stephan Bonnar def. Krzysztof Soszynski via 2nd Round TKO
George Sotiropoulos def. Kurt Pellegrino via Unanimous Decision
Brendand Schaub def. Chris Tuchscherer via 1st Round TKO
Ricardo Romero def. Seth Petruzelli via 2nd Round Submission
Jon Madsen def. Karlos Vemola via Unanimous Decision
Daniel Roberts def. Forrest Petz via Split Decision
Gerald Harris def. Dave Branch via 3rd Round KO
Kendall Grove def. Goran Reljic via Split Decision
Complete DREAM 15 Card Saturday, July 10th
HDNet at 3 AM EST
Lightweight Championship: Shinya Aoki (c) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri
JZ Cavalcante vs. Katsunori Kikuno
Melvin Manhoef vs. Tatsuya Mizuno
Gegard Mousasi vs. Jake O'Brien
Karl Amoussou vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura
Michihiro Omigawa vs. Young Sam Jung
Mitsuhiro Ishida vs DJ.taiki Hata
JUGGERNAUT NEWS BRIEFS
- Alistair Overeem said he never verbally agreed to nor signed a contract to fight at DREAM 15 on July 10th. There is no word yet whether Ricco Rodriguez will still fight or whether he's out of luck.
- UFC veteran Spencer Fisher has signed a new four-fight contract with the promotion and will fight Kurt Warburton at UFC 120 in October.
- Dana White has said lightweight George Sotiropoulos is officially in the title mix after his UFC 116 decision win over Kurt Pellegrino. Sotiropoulos has an active six-fight winning streak.
- The preliminary plan is for Brock Lesnar's next title defense to take place at UFC 119 in September against Cain Velasquez. The UFC will soon talk with Lesnar's camp to gauge how soon he's willing to fight after UFC 116.
- UFC 116 fight bonuses were awarded to Gerald Harris for Knockout of the Night, Brock Lesnar for Submission of the Night and Stephan Bonnar, Krzysztof Soszynski, Chris Leben and Yoshihiro Akiyama for Fight of the Night. All six men were given $75,000 in addition to their purse money.
- According to Dana White, Chuck Liddell has not decided yet whether he will retire or continue fighting.
- Tatame.com reports Strikeforce's August 21st show will feature a fight between Jacare Souza and Tim Kennedy to crown their new middleweight champion in addition to King Mo's first light heavyweight title defense against Rafael Cavalcante. The show will air on Showtime.
I gotta admit, Brock earned a hell of alot of respect from me Saturday night. I've watched the fight 5 times since then and the way he survived Carwin's GnP was impressive as hell.
I thought the ref did a good job letting the fight go on and giving Brock a chance to recover, there was a point were he could have stopped it - right around the 3 minute mark, I've seen plenty of fights stopped for less but I'm glad he let it go, nice finish with the arm-triangle as well.
The Cain match-up is a very interesting one, I think he matches up pretty well with Brock.
He's a better wrestler than Carwin, he's got better cardio and while he doesn't have the raw KO power he's got quick hands and throws good combos. Brock's gonna have to tighten up his boxing defense, I noticed his elbows were too far apart and if Cain can hit a short uppercut from clinch-range then throw "punches in bunches" he could do some damage but Brock has proven his chin/recovery time is good and now he's adding subs. to his wrestling, top control and GnP plus going in with a 20-30lb weight advantage I'm thinking it'll be a close fight no matter who wins.
Posted By: UK_MMA_Fan (Guest) on July 08, 2010 at 11:34 AM
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