The Lesnar flap examined

I readily confess to never sharing the fondness for Brock Lesnar that flows among the PS staff; nor will you EVER see me among the barbarians in a Tap Out shirt cheering on their fellow troglodytes at a UFC PPV.  As far as I’m concerned, MMA stands for “Misguided Martial Arts,” its figurehead, Dana White, a McBoy trying to be a McMahon.

But in case you’re among the quintet who have yet to hear, something marvelous involving the above transpired on July 11th.  Lesnar cut a standard heel promo after his championship defense, and, the way the public reacted, you would have thought he said “God bless Hitler” while standing on a baby.  

Oh, sure, Lesnar apologized over the following days.  Let’s see:  D-list-celeb to biggest buzz on sports talk shows and the web, and now getting even more publicity out of it by professing remorse.  Mm-hmm, I bet Brock’s REALLY distraught this is the way things turned out as a result of his “spontaneous” indiscretion.

(And if you don’t realize people can say they’re sorry and never mean a syllable of it, you should try this new thing they’ve got out--called “dating.”)

The backlash against Lesnar really cracks me up.  It took a hundred PPVs and, what, a thousand fighters for someone to have the business sense to go full-scale for heat; and now the others are griping because they were too dim to think of it themselves?  Like all the money BL is going to draw—and thus allow those same dense crybabies to earn higher payoffs—will hurt UFC, right?  

You know, like the way Ali “hurt” boxing.

Let’s examine some of the other pompous prattle from the snifflers.

*”The pro wrestling element poisons the purity of the sport."  Anyone who’s ever seen a single episode of the annually fading Ultimate Fighter knows just ten minutes of the sport’s own program does more damage to the image of “martial artists” than a hundred wrestling-style promos could ever inflict.

The unknowing public, pre-Ultimate Fighter, likely presumed m/a practitioners were on the studious side, men of few words, embracing zen philosophies…and many traditional martial artists are.  But what viewers got instead from UF is a herd of drunken, inked-up loudmouths with blind barbers, whose heads only function as hat racks and bludgeon devices.  You could clone Sandman nine times, place all ten Sandys in a Big Brother house, and they’d still be better-behaved than these yobs.

*“We don’t want MMA to turn into the WWE.”  Well, yeah.  Who would want a worldwide company producing six hours of prime-time television on four nights—including a flagship live program regularly among cable TV’s top five—without burning out its audience via overexposure?  (And this coming with two other successful national promotions.)  Or one that’s been around and profitable for generations, not just years, and produced four of the top five discs—including first place—on the best-selling sports DVDs list the week of UFC 100?  And surely none of the cage-dwellers would want to get stuck starring in movies and have the number-one rental in the country, as Cena did the week leading up to Lesnar-Mir.  

Must say MMA has done a remarkable job of avoiding those “pitfalls.”  

*”MMA is about respect, not making top dollars."  Odd, I didn’t notice anyone ever getting a rebate on a PPV fee once the promotion met the break-even cost.  And major-event tickets scaled to AVERAGE $500 each certainly reflects a thorough rejection of capitalism, eh, readers? 

*“We’re not entertainment."  Sure got that right!  

Hmm, if the “show” element of wrestling is abhorred so thoroughly, how come there’s pay bonuses for knockouts?  While you’re fishing for answers, I’ll try to forget Kimo toting a full-size crucifix during his UFC 3 entrance.

*And then there are those who, starting a few years back, arrogantly proclaimed “MMA is going to wipe wrestling off the map.”  Tell me, bandwagon-boarders, how’s that international house show business coming along?  Getting rich on that investment in Bodog Fight, are we?  Those George St. Pierre shirts flying off the shelves?  I want to wear one to the next Elite XC event.

The only false step I see in the whole post-fight scenario was the Lesnar apology.  Should have gone just the opposite way, using his legitimate jerk vibe to pump up the kind of heat that hasn’t been witnessed since the days Jim Cornette used to wear a bulletproof vest down the aisle.

Before competing again, Lesnar ought to “leak” that he didn’t mean a word he said, declaring, “I won’t be flipping off the fans after my next victory—I’ll be mooning them instead.  And the following fight, I’m gonna do a Borat and wear nothing but gloves.”  I’d also recommend going into full Pillman mode on the talk show circuit.  “See this tattoo on my chest, Letterman?  I’ve got another tattoo on my ass…of your wife.”  What gabfest host isn’t going to irrigate his pants should the massive Minnesotan lean in close and utter, “You got a problem with that?"

More important, how many millions of viewers would be tempted to buy the next PPV solely based on the hopes of Brock getting flattened?

Another option is to take a page right out of lucha libre, where promoters realize the fiscal bonanza inherent in welcoming a rudo (heel) cheering section.  Lesnar’s strategy would be to do the old “Can I please get some competition around here?” gimmick, claiming the reason he’s so dominant is because the UFC fighters are cottonballs “compared to the superior athletes in professional wrestling.  These octageeks wouldn’t last four minutes in a real ring."

Brock can even pull out the classic threat to take his UFC championship to the hated rival—guess who!  (Hint:  Stamford HQ.)

As it stands now, because MMA has such limited appeal, the same simpletons line up to order each PPV.  But with Lesnar playing total heel in the bloodshot eyes of the UFC faithful while simultaneously presenting himself as the spokesman of wrestling—in essence, making grap fans the rudo backers in the scenario—Brock potentially brings millions of fresh eyes to, ironically enough, the profession he ran to when he couldn’t cut it in the squared circle.

And some of the more challenged wrestling aficionados may even dig the other bouts, thereby winning UFC more perverts, er, converts……while the dolts complain about how pro wrestling is ruining MMA.