Watching the Brock Lesnar/Frank Mir fight last night made me think back to the very first UFC when a physically over-matched Royce Gracie left a swath of destruction down the center of the octagon. If there was ever a question that technique can defeat strength Royce Gracie laid that question to rest with a jaw-dropping display of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Given the history of UFC, I’m not sure why so many pundits were convinced Lesnar would beat Mir. If a littler guy can’t beat a bigger, stronger guy than the entire premise of Jiu-Jitsu is worthless and we should all just go to the weight room and try to get pumped up. Right?

One other gripe before I shut up about this forever. A lot of the Monday morning quarterbacks are saying stuff like, “Lesnar would have destroyed Mir but for the one mistake.” I think that reasoning is deeply flawed. If Lesnar made a big mistake in the first 90 seconds of the fight, he’d make roughly 3 big mistakes per round, or 15 big mistakes over the course of a fight. Compare that to someone like Fedor Emelianenko, who makes almost no mental errors, and you begin to grasp how much Lesnar has to learn (and unlearn) before he takes the belt. Personally, I think it’s inevitable that Lesnar takes the belt. He’s too talented and driven not to. As he raises his game he is going to be pounding guys like rented mules.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.