411 MMA Fact or Fiction 03.07.08: Brock Lesnar, EXC on CBS, and Anderson Silva

Posted by Michael Huckaby on 03.07.2008

Will Brock Lesnar dominate Mark Coleman in his 2nd UFC fight? Will EXC on CBS do little for the sport? Is it good for MMA that Kimbo is the main attraction for that show? Will Anderson Silva need to change weight classes to find a real challenge? All of this and more on the latest edition of 411 MMA Fact or Fiction.

Welcome back to another edition of 411 MMA Fact or Fiction. This week is a very special week as we have perhaps the two greatest players in our history, Planet Tapout's Lotfi Sariahmed up against the author of Five Rounds of News, Mr. Randy Harrison.

Let's do it:

1. Anderson Silva will need to change weight classes if he wants to challenge himself.

Sariahmed: FACT. It's unfortunate but true. There's no one at middleweight right now in the UFC that can challenge him. Yushin Okami will be a pest in their title fight just because of how Okami fights. But he's not a legitimate threat to take the belt off of him. Then look at the rest of the division. Who else is there for him in the UFC? Martin Kampmann? Thales Leites? Patrick Cote? Hell would have to freeze over before the UFC brought in Matt Lindland or Frank Shamrock. The next big challenges out there for Silva come at 170 and possibly 205 as well. Could Silva handle "Rampage's" power? Would the cut in weight be too much for Silva against GSP at 170? They are big money fights and if Silva were to win either bout, it would just further cement his "pimptitude" (yes I'm making that a word) as the best pound for pound fighter out there.

Harrison: FACT. Who's left? Seriously. I'll wait. Yeah, that's about what I thought. After he faces Yushin Okami, who should be the next challenger, there's not a lot left at middleweight for Silva. If he loses to Okami, he faces him in a rematch and that's that. If he wins, he has completely decimated the division and that's that. The only real challenge for him at this point, besides seeing how many guys he can finish in a row, is to see if he can hang with GSP and Fitch and the cardio beasts that roam the plains at 170, or to bump up in weight class and see how he fares against the Shoguns, Liddells and Rampages of the world at 205. I don't even think bringing in Shamrock or Lindland from outside the UFC would make a lick of difference at this point. That leaves Silva with only two options, up or down.

Score: 1 for 1. I'd never thought of Silva/F. Shamrock. That would be fun on so many levels; the highest of which being Shamrock getting punched in the face or just fighting someone under 40 that's fought more than 10 times and won 60% of them.

2. Randy Couture should come back and prove he can beat Nogueira before worrying about Fedor.

Sariahmed: FICTION. From a competition perspective this is fact. We all want to know how Couture would do against the mighty Fedor but what about Big Nog? It's an interesting fight that I'd definitely watch. BUT I'm not taking this from a competition perspective. The fact still remains that Randy Couture is set to turn 45 in June. At some point age will catch up with him. If he only has one more fight left, which is very possible, the fight needs to be against the best in the division and that's Fedor. If Randy Couture were just another heavyweight then I'd say have him fight Big Nog then Fedor. But part of Randy's allure is that he's this 44 year old doing so well. So he shouldn't come back and fight Big Nog before Fedor.

Harrison: FICTION. He should come back to fight Nogueira because it is stipulated in the contract he signed before facing Tim Sylvia last March. He doesn't need to prove to anyone that he's qualified to fight Fedor Emelianenko because we all know that he is. What he needs to do is finish out his UFC contract so that the fight can happen without this cloud of controversy and the endless string of lawsuits that the controversy hath wrought. Would Nogueira vs. Couture be an excellent fight? Of course it would be, but it is not necessary to a Fedor/Couture fight.

Score: 2 for 2. I find the Fedor/Couture fight fascinating because even if Fedor beat him next year the Fedor bashers would just say he hadn't fought in 2 years and was 45 years old so it means nothing.

3. Brock Lesnar will dominate Mark Coleman in his 2nd UFC bout.

Sariahmed: FACT. And I'm not even thinking twice about this statement. Lesnar v. Coleman=Shamrock v. Franklin=Hughes v. Gracie. If you dig deep enough, I wouldn't be surprised to find out Coleman was put into the UFC Hall of Fame just to make Lesnar's beating of Coleman more marketable. Lesnar is a stronger and younger version of Coleman right now and barring a Coleman v. Shogun scenario I just don't see how Coleman could win this fight. Coleman is over the hill in every sense of the term and will struggle against Lesnar who, if nothing else, is a very good athlete. Coleman's strength in this fight is on the ground...just like Lesnar and there's not nearly the same threat of the submission as there was for Lesnar against Mir. Like I said in the last Planet Tapout, if this goes past the first round I'd be surprised. Fact.

Harrison: FACT. Lesnar is young, huge, and strong. Coleman is old, smaller, and not as strong. The question isn't whether or not Lesnar will win, because Coleman has been around a long time and probably has plenty of tricks up his sleeve. The question is whether he will dominate Coleman, and that is an obvious fact. He dominated his first fight on the K-1 Dynamite card last year. Hell, it could be argued that, for the first 80 seconds of the fight, Lesnar was dominating Frank Mir, so I don't think he'll have any problem with Coleman. This fight is going to be interesting in that it's going to be like watching Ground And Pound vs. Ground And Pound 2.0, in that Lesnar is a younger, quicker, ostensibly better version of the original in terms of his capabilties. Much like new computer programs though, whether newer is better remains to be seen.

Score: 3 for 3. Halfway home to perfection.

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4. EXC on CBS sounds good in name value but will really just get poor ratings and do little for the sport.

Harrison: FICTION. It's already done a huge amount for the sport, just in that the deal was consumated. To think even five years ago that MMA would have been on network television would have been unfathomable, yet five years later, there it is. The UFC has proven that the sport can draw ratings on cable and EXC has shown that they can draw viewers on premium cable, so one would assume that if EXC can put on a decent opening show for CBS, that it would be able to draw a fairly decent number. You can also add in that there will be a considerable number of MMA fans that will be taking this as a source of pride and will want the show to do as well as possible. Look at how movies that starred The Rock have becme hit movies, just based on the fact that people who were wrestling fans mobilized and flocked to see it. I think that the MMA fanbase will mobilize in the same way for the first time on this national level and make an extra effort to check the show out, good or bad, just to be able to help further the cause of MMA, draw CBS a fairly decent rating, and to try to get as much MMA on network TV as possible.

Sariahmed: FICTION. God I hope not for the sake of MMA fans and pundits everywhere. If EliteXC were to do poorly on CBS, Dana White's head might actually get bigger and we might not hear the end about how everything other than the UFC is an inferior product. In terms of the event itself, don't forget about the impact CBS will have on the broadcast. For those college basketball fans among us, you will be seeing Kevin Ferguson ads during March Madness. We will be inundated with ads and promos hyping EliteXC on CBS and it will continue up until the first event. Between the already established MMA base and the new people CBS will help bring in, I'm not worried about fans tuning in. It's the product EliteXC puts out that has me worried.

Score: 4 for 4. Excellent points about CBS advertising and MMA fans going out of their way to bump the ratings. Though judging by Sherdog's message boards I have to wonder how many 11-year-olds with a learning disability have Nielsen boxes. I figure that has to be a small demographic.

5. I'm okay with Kimbo Slice being the face and main attraction of the first show.

Harrison: FACT. I'm going to attach a small caveat to that though. I'm fine with him being the face and main attraction of the first show because of how well he drew for them on the previous Showtime show. The caveat that I attach is that they avoid referring to him as the "internet sensation" and instead try to make him the "MMA sensation" like I had suggested in the edition of Five Rounds that immediately followed the "Street Certified" card. Kimbo knows how to talk up a fight and is actually very personable, as shown during his Jimmy Kimmel appearance and many of the videos that feature him and Mayhem Miller. They need to keep as far a distance away from Kimbo's street brawling past as possible, because the last thing that MMA needs is to be associated with, or thought of, as nothing but an illegal, no-holds-barred, bare-knuckled, ultra-violent street brawl. Kimbo will bring the excitement to draw the people in, and hopefully the skill of some of the other performers like Jake Shields, Yves Edwards, or any of the other top EXC stars. I can see it going the other way where people just assume that MMA is exactly like Kimbo's internet fight videos, but I am willing to give the American public the benefit of the doubt this one time. I hope I'm not wrong.

Sariahmed: FICTION. No no and no again. I've gone off at length in the 411Mania MMA Forums and the last Planet Tapout discussing this very subject. I have no problem with Kevin Ferguson in MMA training with some of the best fighters and coaches out there trying to become the best. I hope Kevin Ferguson succeeds and has a great career. But what's happening here is EliteXC is milking Kimbo Slice internet sensation for all its worth. Kimbo Slice is the star who hasn't fought anyone reputable in MMA to this point and really has been treated as nothing more than a freak show. I don't want him main eventing this card because I think it's an awful first impression to send out to new viewers and potential fans. With all that said though, I understand this is an issue of dollars and cents and unfortunately Kimbo Slice is the biggest name fighter EliteXC has right now. This is still fiction for me though because I'm certainly not ok with it.

Score: 4 for 5. I've long been defensive about Kimbo because Mike Tyson was the biggest draw in boxing and he was a convicted rapist that used to knock out old ladies and steal their purses. However I could argue with myself that if you say, "what did Mike Tyson do?" people say "box." If you currently ask people what Kimbo does many would say, "fight on youtube." Maybe the real goal is to change the public perception of him to MMA.

6. Jon Fitch does indeed deserve the next UFC Welterweight Title shot.

Harrison: FACT. The same way that Yushin Okami deserves the next Middleweight Title shot despite being a "Boring" fighter, Fitch deserves to get the next crack at whoever wins GSP/Serra II because he is the top fighter in the division. The man hasn't lost in nearly FIVE AND A HALF years, and is 8-0 in the UFC. I don't know what else he would need to do to earn a shot at the champion. Who else is there really that is on the horizon as a legitimate contender? Karo Parisyan doesn't have the same record as Fitch and actually has more decisions than Fitch in the UFC. In Fitch's eight UFC fights he has four finishes and four decisions. Parisyan has seven victories in eight UFC fights, and seven of his last nine wins have been decided by the judge's scorecards. Granted, he's still exciting with his style of fighting, but this stat just shows that the people who claim Fitch to be nothing but a decision fighter or a lay-and-prayer, don't have a leg to stand on. Fitch deserves the shot and as a big fan of his, and an MMA fan in general, I'm glad that he's getting it.

Sariahmed: FICTION. No offense to Jon Fitch. He's a very talented welterweight and certainly deserves to eventually get a title shot. So this might be fact if you want to get REALLY technical. But when did he move past Karo Parisyan as the #1 contender? The real way to solve this is put Parisyan against Fitch and find the #1 contender that way. But in the meantime, I don't know how Fitch just overtook Parisyan. The one big difference is that Fitch beat Diego Sanchez by split decision while Karo lost to him in the Fight of the Year in 2006. The Sanchez fight is also the only big fight Fitch has had in the UFC and I'll give you Thiago Alves if you pushed me on it. Parisyan has lost to three people since 2000. Diego Sanchez, Sean Sherk and Georges St. Pierre. Karo has more big name wins than Fitch and you can chalk that up to whatever you'd like. The fact is Parisyan's beaten more big name guys than Fitch. Again, it's not to say Fitch doesn't eventually deserve a title shot. I just need someone to explain to me when he overtook Parisyan and what's going to happen if Parisyan handles Alves on the UFC Fight Night in April?

Score: 4 for 6. Maybe Fitch overtook Parisyan when Karo ducked a fight with him? You know, to get an easier opponent to get the next title shot. That worked out well.

Exceptional job again, gentlemen.

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Join us next week when two more columnists discuss new breaking news and DREAM's opening card.