Dana White announced today that Brock Lesnar and Junior Dos Santos will be the coaches in this season (TUF 13) of The Ultimate Fighter. The two fighters will continue the tradition of concluding the season by meeting in the Octagon. Dana’s announcement only ensured two things. The first is that there would be instant controversy among keyboard warriors everywhere in the blogosphere. Lesnar’s role as authorized trainer relative to his inexperience as a mixed martial artist will add to his already sizable critic base. The second guarantee is that TUF 13 will have gold ratings! Lesnar has proven time and time again that if nothing else he turns heads. Whatever method he uses to track popularity, be it Google searches or pay-per-view purchases, Lesnar is without a doubt the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg of ratings.
Once one gets past the initial discomfort of appointing an intensely private individual with relatively little MMA experience as a coach, this season offers many intriguing questions. First of all, what will be Brock’s attitude and personality? Or rather, perhaps the question should be how will the UFC choose to portray Lesnar? Lesnar has described himself as a lone wolf type of individual before. He hates big cities (instead of moving to an established gym, he chose to build his own in rural Alexandria, Minnesota) and must fear spending all that time in Las Vegas. Lesnar was recently quoted as he was describing himself:
“It’s very basic for me. When I go home, I don’t buy any of the bs. Like I said, it’s pretty basic: training, sleeping, family, fighting. It’s my life. I like it. I’ve been in front of the cameras for 10, 12 years old. I was a star at the University of Minnesota. I went on to World Wrestling Entertainment. Aspiring NFL player. And here I am, the UFC Heavyweight Champion. to the fans and prostituting my private life to everyone. In the Nowadays, with the internet and cameras and cell phones, I like to be old school and live in the woods and live my life. I come from nothing and at any time, you can go back to having nothing.”
What in that statement leads someone to believe that they want to spend more than a month in Sin City, away from their family, under the glare of cameras? My guess is that the UFC must have paid him a mint to do these cheat ratings. Clearly, they didn’t do it for the fighters who will all be welterweights (by necessity, that makes the show different from this season, where GSP was a constant sparring partner for his team). There is a rumor circulating on many internet forums that Lesnar has made a backroom deal with White that sees him endorsing The Ultimate Fighter franchise in exchange for being allowed to do Wrestlemania this year (which would likely pay Lesnar a fair amount). of money even more obscene). ). While this would be great for Spike’s ratings, it would likely alienate many traditional fans of the sport. The increasingly gray line between MMA and professional wrestling has a long history that many fans find frustrating. Lesnar seems to have become the symbol of this hatred, as well as the predictable reaction of ‘original’ MMA fans towards the newer, more mainstream group (aka ‘Ultimate Fighter Newbs’) with whom Lesnar is a big fan. cross success.
But the question remains: How will Lesnar be received? When the cameras roll, will he revert to the brash, controversial, WWE-bred persona he portrayed when he initially entered the UFC? Or will he continue to reveal the much humbler side of him that we’ve seen since his near-death experience last year? Will he seek to intimidate Dos Santos or accept his recent failings in the name of improvement? Will he earn the grudging respect of MMA experts (as Kimbo Slice did a few seasons ago) or give them more ammunition to use against him? Lesnar has never been part of an MMA team in the traditional sense of the word before (he hires fighters to come in and train with him in Alexandria on a fight-by-fight basis, but to my knowledge he doesn’t regularly attend other gyms) how will he adjust to the TUF’s camaraderie-oriented environment? Finally, as I mentioned before, how Lesnar acts on the show and wishes to be portrayed could be irrelevant in the end. The real question is probably what Zuffa’s editing team will do with Lesnar’s footage. Does the UFC need another humble fighter in the Cain Velasquez mold? Or would it instead be more advanced to encourage the view of Lesnar as a controversial figure that many would pay top dollar to see defeated? The answers to these questions will be very interesting to say the least.
The biggest issue the show will undoubtedly have to deal with is Lesnar’s legitimacy as a coach, as well as the team he will bring with him. While JDS has experience as a professional boxer and trains BJJ with the famous Nogueira brothers on Team Black House (it is widely speculated that his belt rank is brown…thank goodness I don’t place much value on everyone’s belt ranks modes) what does Lesnar really bring to the table? Well, he definitely brings wrestling skills. This is no small feat in today’s MMA climate. In my opinion this is without a doubt the most important base for a fighter. Other than that though, does it really excel anywhere else? Can he really teach welterweights to be a genetic monster like him? With so little time with the fighters, I often think headlining training is overkill. If Lesnar can communicate (such an overlooked aspect of training) his wrestling knowledge and work ethic to him, this could prove quite valuable. Plus, it’s the guys he brings in that can really make or break a contestant’s experience.
On that note, it’s always fun to speculate which trainers each fighter might bring. JDS would seem to have a natural advantage coming from one of the most experienced teams in the world in the aforementioned Brazil-based team Black House. With such notable training partners as the Nogueira brothers, Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida, there are plenty of options for Dos Santos to choose from. Interestingly, very few of the team members are known to have real wrestling experience.
I’m guessing Brock will bring his guy Greg Nelson along for the trip (he’ll likely pick the other trainers and ultimately shape the training for Team Lesnar). He has quite a bit of experience in the world of MMA and has clearly done an excellent job of bringing Lesnar up to speed in the relatively short time they’ve been training. I think the real wild card when it comes to Lesnar will be which arm he or the UFC can twist to appear on the show. Since the UFC has a vested interest in promoting Lesnar, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear any names. Any of the current WW, MW and/or LHW could ask them to appear on behalf of Dana and company. Also, if Nelson and Lesnar have any plans to improve their striking (which should take recent results into account), they should spare no expense to bring in a top-notch strike trainer (just pay whatever it takes to get Duke Roufus Brock). This would leave the door open for any number of trainers, as both Brock’s and Dana’s checkbooks and promotional appeal could attract the attention of just about anyone.
It’s a long way before the two giants step into the Octagon together, but the inner forecaster in me can’t help but speculate on the end result. Early poll results on various websites showed Dos Santos holding a 60-40 advantage in the minds of fight fans. The fighters are great opponents of each other. JDS’s technical boxing acumen and overall power have left a long list of destruction in his wake as he has climbed the heavyweight ladder. When you combine this with Brock’s complete lack of kickboxing training and subsequent inexperience with punches, it seems like a huge advantage for ‘Cigano’. However, we have yet to see Dos Santos’ ground game tested in the UFC. He trains with some great BJJ players, but that’s no guarantee of anything. Lesnar was able to completely smother Frank Mir on the ground, and JDS is no Cain Velasquez in terms of takedown defense. At this point, in my opinion, it’s a complete crap shot. Both fighters have really gotten better each time they’ve fought (this is an often overused cliché, but I truly believe it in the case of these two giants). To think that they will not have worked on their respective weaknesses is ridiculous. I’m interested to see what each man brings to the table for the show.
Whatever happens during TUF 13, it’s going to be interesting, it’s going to be controversial, and it’s going to make Dana White and Zuffa a lot of money.