First half of round 1 was pretty good. In fact the beginning started out kind of like I predicted with Lauzon taking it to the ground and Florian immediately looking to cut with an elbow from the ground. The fight was stopped for a warning to Florian because supposedly he was elbowing the back of the head. Myself and Joe Rogan, as I'm sure thousands of MMA fans were a bit perplexed with Herb Dean's call. It's nearly impossible from that position and angle to elbow the back of the head directly, kind of like trying to bite your own elbows - highly unlikely.

It'll be interesting to see if this sets a precedence for fighters being in the top guard of trying to really bury their head to defend elbows from the bottom or even try to turn the back of their toward the strikes, think Frank Mir getting a "get out of a beating" card from Steverino Mazagatti against Brock Lesnar. I'm willing to bet we'll be seeing this more and more in the near future, unfortunately.

So I'm wondering if it was the huge body kick that Kenny Florian landed right into Lauzon's side and immediately followed up with the cross to the side/liver that completely drained a usually very long lasting Lauzon? Cause shortly after Lauzon who loves ground and pound all of a sudden gave up a good top position to go for a leglock and started gasping for air. It was immediately obvious at that point that he couldn't go on for much longer. Florian took over quick in the second round, got to the mount and started throwing punches on top of helpless and out of gas Lauzon.

To Herb Dean's credit he wasn't stopping the fight just because Florian was arm flailing, he made him work for a while and gave Lauzon all kinds of chances to improve his position. I hope this sets yet another precedence of the refs actually making sure that the arm flailing is doing actual damage from now on. As much as I like Arlovski and that he got a so so win against Jake O'Brian at UFC 82, the ref didn't make him work that hard and do actual damage at arm flailing from the mount.

Good win for Kenny Florian, he seems to hang in there and find a way to win.

Well gotta run, I hear Dana White is sick of p**sies coming on to his Ultimate Fighter show, which is funny cause doesn't he pick them himself every time? Rampage and Forrest are going to make this entertaining for sure!

 

 

To all the fans out there that decided to ignore the fact that Brock Lesnar was a NCAA Division I heavyweight champ and a real elite athlete before he joined WWE to make a living and derogatory comments after his loss to Frank Mir by submission about him still not being "real", please listen to Mr. Sunshine's radio interview of Frank Mir to hear what Frank Mir himself thinks about Brock Lesnar after the fight finally took place.

To all the fans to had a clue about Lesnar's athletic experience and his good performance against Frank Mir, also please list to Mr. Sunshine's interview of Frank Mir. It's quite revealing and honest coming from Mir himself. I have to give Mir props for admitting that few times when Brock hit him he was seeing white, not a lot of fighters are honest like that.  Mir also thinks that Brock is for real and has a lot of potential in this sport.

Check out the interview, Mir also gives his thoughts on Nogueira vs Sylvia bout and what's next in the UFC heavyweight division.

So wow, yeah, all the anticipation that led up to this fight, all the speculation and questions were sort of answered. I picked Brock Lesnar to win in my UFC 81 quick picks. He lost the fight unfortunately, but he won respect of many MMA fans that doubted him as being a legitimate threat in MMA. It definitely turned out that way.

The fight started of with Mir low kicking Lesnar and Lesnar catching the kick and immediately taking Mir down. They ended up in Mir's half guard and Lesnar immediately started putting pressure on Mir by vicious looking strikes from the top.  In the process of trying to avoid Lesnar's pressure Mir turns his head a little too much toward Lesnar and Lesnar accidentally punched Mir to the back of his head. It was one single punch that kind of grazingly landed on the back of the head but Steve Mazagatti immediately stopped the fight and took a way a point from Lesnar. WTF? Really? It happens all the time and no referree ever took a way a point on an accidental punch to the back of the heat. I'm completely not sure why Mazagatti did that, especially to a newcomer like Lesnar.

After they were stood up, Mir tried two more kicks which Lesnar countered with a few hard punches which knocked Mir down. Lesnar pounced on Mir, landed in the sidemount/north side and proceeded to unleash another flurry of very hard looking punches. For a moment Mir turned on to his knees and Lesnar quickly spun around him to continue punching from the sidemount on the other side. Mir brought his legs up to try an armbar but Lesnar easily got out of that before he was in any danger. Lesnar continued to keep pressuring Mir with more punches from the top of the guard. He stood up and stepped into Mir's half guard where Mir went for a leglock. Lesnar spun away and threw himself away and down to try to get his leg away from Mir, but Mir held on and went for a kneebar. Lesnar tried to escape for a few seconds and tapped.

In my opinion Lesnar tapped way to quickly with out really trying to escape on a kneebar that did not look like it was applied well. For anybody who's trained in grappling at all and dabbled into kneebars, will know that when you're applying kneebar your hips need to be on the thigh above the knee. Well it was quite clear that Mir's hips weren't even on Lesnar's knee and certainly not above it. It's really clear in the videos and pictures you'll come across of the fight.

I blame Lesnar's trainers for his tap. Most people that are new to leglocks and kneebars in particular are always scared into tapping quickly so that they save their legs fromany damages that leglocks cause. Most leglocks cause some type of increasingly obvious pain, with the exception of the kneebar. Kneebar is one of those things that do not hurt much till the knee pops. But in order for that to happen hips need to be above the knee, leg has to be just perpendicular to the attacker's body and a lot of pressure needs to be applied. I'm especially surprised that he didn't even try to escape the kneebar because Eric "mr leglocks himself" Paulson was in his corner. So Brock Lesnar just didn't want to risk a possibly debilitating injury. Understandable.

Lesnar dominated Mir before he got caught, no question about it. He is big, powerful and real. He showed a lot of promise and some solid ground and pound. I can't wait to see him back and may be fighting someone like Antoni Hardonk who he'd just probably demolish on the ground.

Switching onto Mir for a moment. He won. He caught inexperienced at leglocks Lesnar in a half-baked kneebar. You have to give him credit though for surviving some intense moments when Lesnar was pounding him. I'm taking some credit away from him for faking that he was in any way hurt by the accidental punch to the back of the head though. Mir should may be fight Sylvia again and quit when he most definately will lose.

Great short fight though.

Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir - Brock Lesnar will run right through Frank Mir. Lots of people are writing Lesnar off against but his wrestling experience and Mir being artificially hyped up by Iole's types will expose Mir and his mediocrity. His biggest win to date is still against another mediocre The Lame-iac Sylvia and even that was a freak accident.

Rodrigo Nogueira vs Tim Sylvia - I want Nogueira to win and really hope he will catch Sylvia with something. He'll punch his way inside and take the find to the ground.

Marvin Eastman vs Terry Martin - I think Martin will take this one with his power

Richardo Almeida vs Yuntd - Almeida, he was really good at one point

Jeremy Horn vs Nate Marquartd - Horn should take this one with some effort

Gleison Tibau vs Tyson Griffin - Griffin will outwork Tibau

Chris Lytle vs Kyle Bradley - Lytle, too much experience

the other two fights - who really cares....