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UFC 116 Aftermath: Lesnar’s Win and the Dangerous Line Between Being the ‘Best’ and Being a ‘Bum’

(Many fans in attendance at the MGM Grand were given giant foam fists adorned with UFC gloves, which they drunkenly used to … oh, wait. PicProps: LA Times.)
When last we saw the UFC heavyweight champion on Saturday night he was slapping fives a…

(Many fans in attendance at the MGM Grand were given giant foam fists adorned with UFC gloves, which they drunkenly used to … oh, wait. PicProps: LA Times.)

When last we saw the UFC heavyweight champion on Saturday night he was slapping fives and doing bro grabs with his homies Stone Cold, Paul E. and Good Ol’ JR. And why not? The Dark Lord certainly had reason to celebrate: Though his face was scratched and his forehead bruised, the newly unified 265-pound strap was still around his waist. Maybe he’d even garnered some new fans with the gritty performance he’d just turned in, battling back from an early deficit to emerge victorious in the toughest fight of his career.

But damn it, just barely.

In fact, it’s difficult to know what to make of Brock Lesnar after a showing like this. The victory over Shane Carwin was definitely the most impressive moment of his short MMA career and it admittedly capped the best UFC pay-per-view we’ve seen in a long while. From Lesnar’s comeback to surprising wins from Stephan Bonnar and Chris Leben to the great scraps put on by Chris Lytle, Matt Brown, George Sotiropoulos and Kurt Pellegrino, UFC 116 delivered.

But Lesnar himself? Did he look great en route to the win? The real answer is both yes and no.

62 Percent of Pros Agree that Carwin Beats Lesnar Tonight

(“And, presto! The dove vanishes before your very eyes. Now, if I may have a volunteer from the audience, I will amaze you with a trick learned during my extensive travels in the orient …” PicProps: Sherdog.)
There are two ways to lo…

There are two ways to look at this: Either the extensive knowledge gleaned from their years of training and competing in mixed martial arts leads a majority of professional fighters to believe Shane Carwin will defeat Brock Lesnar tonight at UFC 116 … or Lesnar’s peers are even more sick of this a-hole than we are and they don’t care who knows it.

Either way, a kind of astonishing 62 percent of pros surveyed by Sherdog.com for its recurring “Pros Pick” piece on Saturday tabbed Carwin to unseat Lesnar, despite the fact he remains a slight betting underdog. Judging from the voter turnout – 61 athletes participated in the super-scientific polling process – The Dog didn’t have to try too hard to get the pros to come out of their shells and voice their opinions, either.

For example, the ever diplomatic Seth Petruzelli weighed-in thusly : “Please, Shane, smash that overgrown non-veggie eating poop stick.”

We assume he meant Lesnar.

Cain Velasquez Has Still Got Next

(VidProps: MMA Fighting)
Heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez brings a lot of excitement to his fights from bell to bell. In an interview setting? Not so much. Velasquez is a great guy but let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to get him to say …

(VidProps: MMA Fighting)

Heavyweight contender Cain Velasquez brings a lot of excitement to his fights from bell to bell. In an interview setting? Not so much. Velasquez is a great guy but let’s face it, it’s almost impossible to get him to say anything interesting. Just ask Ariel Helwani, who does about all he can to pry something, anything good out of Velasquez in this video.

In the wake of UFC President Dana White reconfirming this week that Velasquez has got dibs on the winner of Shane Carwin vs. Brock Lesnar, Helwani asks Velasquez who he’d rather fight. Either guy, Velasquez says. Who does he think will win on Saturday, Helwani asks. Depends, Velasquez says. Would the businessman in him rather chase the bigger payday of a fight with Lesnar than Carwin? No, he just wants to fight the best, Velasquez contends. What will we see from him in his next fight? He just wants to get better in all aspects of MMA.

So yeah, pretty much sticking to the script.

Fact or Crap: Is Lesnar Really Going to Try to Fight Carwin as a Southpaw?

(VidProps: MMA Weekly)
Brock Lesnar could have a lot of things working against him when he climbs into the cage tonight for UFC 116 – a long layoff, possible lingering effects of a career-threatening disease, his most dangerous challenger to da…

(VidProps: MMA Weekly)

Brock Lesnar could have a lot of things working against him when he climbs into the cage tonight for UFC 116 – a long layoff, possible lingering effects of a career-threatening disease, his most dangerous challenger to date and the concentrated hatred of all the good and decent people of the world, just to name a few. With so much already on his plate, it was a little weird earlier this week when Lesnar disclosed that he used some of the extra time off he had while recovering from that hole God put in his stomach lining to switch from an orthodox striking stance to southpaw for his fight with Shane Carwin.

Maybe it’s the smirk on Lesnar’s face during the opening seconds of the above video, but it’s hard not to wonder: Is Brock just fucking with us? Does he really intend to try to fight Carwin as a lefty tonight? Or is this just some gamesmanship on the part of the former WWE wrestler?

‘Fedor vs. Werdum’ Aftermath, Part Deux: Oh Yeah, Some Other Stuff Happened Too

("Pucker Up." PicProps: Strikeforce)
Cung Le won. Cyborg won. Josh Thomson won. Also, Frank Shamrock retired, which we were led to believe mattered in some way.
CagePotato’s inaugural “Holy Crap, We Take Back Everything We Said Ab…

("Pucker Up." PicProps: Strikeforce)

Cung Le won. Cyborg won. Josh Thomson won. Also, Frank Shamrock retired, which we were led to believe mattered in some way.

CagePotato’s inaugural “Holy Crap, We Take Back Everything We Said About You Yesterday” award has absolutely, unequivocally got to go to Jan Finney for taking a hellacious beating from 145-pound female champion Cris “Cyborg” Santos. Finney came up in weight and into the fight with a less-than-stellar professional record, but she took everything Cyborg had (and maybe then some) before finally succumbing to a belated second-round TKO. Let us say for the record that if Strikeforce fires Finney without giving her at least one more fight, there is no justice in this world. What’s the company planning to do with the winner of that upcoming Sarah Kaufman vs. Roxanne Modafferi bout, anyway?

On a personal note: Jan, it may not be politically correct or anatomically accurate for us to say this, but you are one tough son of a bitch.

‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum’ Aftermath: Well, Holy Shit

(…. ….*crickets* …. …. PhotoProps: Strikeforce)
In the days and weeks following Fedor Emelianenko’s stunning loss to Fabricio Werdum inside the Strikeforce cage on Saturday night, some jerk with a website or internet radio show will proba…

(…. ….*crickets* …. …. PhotoProps: Strikeforce)

In the days and weeks following Fedor Emelianenko’s stunning loss to Fabricio Werdum inside the Strikeforce cage on Saturday night, some jerk with a website or internet radio show will probably try to tell you that he saw this coming. When that happens it will be important for you to remember that, aside from a very, very select group of individuals, those people are goddamned liars.

In retrospect – and retrospect always feels cheap – maybe it’s not shocking that Emelianenko lost a fight down the stretch of his storied MMA career. Regardless of the nonsensical stuff Frank Shamrock told us at the top of last night’s broadcast about Fedor’s “impenetrable shield of invincibility,” Emelianenko himself has taken pains to remind us again and again that he is, in fact, just a man; a man who puts his traditional Russian garments on one leg at a time like everybody else.

But to lose this fight? Admit it, you didn’t see that coming.