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UFC 141 Fight Card: Alistair Overeem Must End Brock Lesnar Quickly

At the risk of saying something totally obvious, the main event of UFC 141 is kind of a big deal.On the one hand, it will be Brock Lesnar’s first time in the Octagon since he got his face rearranged by Cain Velasquez at UFC 121 way back in October of 2…

At the risk of saying something totally obvious, the main event of UFC 141 is kind of a big deal.

On the one hand, it will be Brock Lesnar‘s first time in the Octagon since he got his face rearranged by Cain Velasquez at UFC 121 way back in October of 2010. His health betrayed him (again) soon after, but indications are that he’s as healthy as he’s ever going to be.

In addition, the UFC 141 main event will be Alistair Overeem’s very first fight in the UFC ranks. That might make some people nervous about his prospects, but we’re talking about a guy who has been fighting for a long, long time. To boot, he’s only getting better. He’s ready for UFC, and you better believe that he has the goods to beat Lesnar, the former UFC Heavyweight champ.

But only if Overeem fights his fight. If he fights Lesnar’s fight, he’s doomed.

To avoid fighting Lesnar’s fight, the one thing Overeem has to do is stay off the ground. If Lesnar gets him on the ground, his elite wrestling talents will take over, and Overeem will be at a huge disadvantage.

Overeem knows this, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stay on his feet the whole fight. The longer the fight drags on, the more danger Overeem will be in.

That’s why he would be wise to end it quickly. In fact, Overeem shouldn’t even let this fight go a full round.

This will be easier said than done, but it’s not impossible. It’s no secret that the book on Lesnar is that he can’t take a punch, and the book on Overeem is that he can deliver them. He can also deliver knees, though he would be wise to be very careful with his footing against Lesnar.

I highly doubt that Lesnar will be done in by a single punch (a la Velasquez against Junior dos Santos), but a quick study of the Lesnar vs. Velasquez bout will show that one punch can rob Lesnar of his wits. A few more where that one punch came from will finish Lesnar for good.

The long layoff won’t necessarily make Lesnar any more vulnerable. Indeed, his health kept him out of action for a year from July of 2009 to July of 2010, yet he came back strong to beat Shane Carwin at UFC 116 via a second-round submission.

Overeem can avoid becoming like Carwin by keeping his bout with Lesnar confined to the first round, preferably within the first two or thee minutes. Anything longer than that, and Overeem will be pushing his luck.

If Lesnar beats Overeem, Lesnar will be back.

If Overeem beats Lesnar, Lesnar may be done.

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Velasquez vs. Dos Santos Results: Dustin Poirier Adds to Impressive UFC Resume

The moment of truth at the very first UFC on FOX is nearly upon us, as Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos are minutes away from stepping into the Octagon to fight for the UFC Heavyweight championship.It’s going to be an outstanding fight, and many qu…

It’s going to be an outstanding fight, and many questions are going to be answered by the time it’s finished. But until it gets here, let’s stop for a second to give Dustin Poirier some props.

In case you missed it, Poirier squared off against Pablo Garza not too long ago and won via submission in the second round.

It’s how Poirier won that’s the impressive part. He is known for being a vicious striker, and that much was on display in the first round when he connected with a handful of combinations.

The second round saw both fighters take the fight to the ground. Garza made the mistake of leaving his head exposed and Poirier was able to get him in a d’arce choke. Garza lasted a few seconds before tapping out at the 1:32 mark.

Given Poirier’s recent fights, that he won by submission is a little surprising. His last submission win came back in March of 2010, and this is also the first fight of his to end before the third round since last November.

This is also Poirier’s third straight win since joining UFC. He’ll finish 2011 with three wins in UFC, and each one has been more impressive than the last. If he keeps up at this rate, it won’t be long before he outgrows preliminary fights that can only be seen on Facebook.

Regardless, coming away as a winner in an event as big as UFC on FOX can only help Poirier’s cause. He’s a force to be reckoned with in the featherweight division, and the fights are only going to get bigger as long as he keeps on winning.

Perhaps we’re looking at a future champion?

Time will tell.

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Brock Lesnar: Is Lesnar Coming Back Too Soon to Fight Alistair Overeem?

When it was announced back in May that Brock Lesnar was pulling out of UFC 131 thanks to another flare-up of diverticulitis, there were many who questioned whether or not Lesnar’s MMA career was over for good. And it was a legit concern. Diverticulitis…

And it was a legit concern. Diverticulitis, a painful condition in which pouches form in the wall of one’s colon, had already forced Lesnar to walk away from the sport for an extended period of time back in 2009-2010. He was able to come back from it once, but it was hard to see him coming back from it twice—shows how much we know.

As The Los Angeles Times first reported on Tuesday, Lesnar is going to be back in the Octagon at UFC 141 on December 30, where he will fight Alistair Overeem for a shot at the UFC Heavyweight Championship.

That this is going to be Overeem’s UFC debut is a big story, but the bigger story is Lesnar. I don’t think anybody expected him to be ready to fight again by the end of the year, and you get the feeling that a lot of people still don’t believe that he is.

There’s a good reason for that. It would be one thing if Lesnar’s latest (and hopefully last) tangle with diverticulitis needed just rest and medication to overcome. But he had to have what sounds like pretty significant surgery to deal with the problem.

As ESPN’s Frank McNeil reported back in late May, Lesnar had to have a 12-inch section of his colon removed. After the operation was complete, UFC president Dana White said they were “hoping” that Lesnar would be ready to return by the first of the year.

So either Lesnar is way ahead of schedule, or he’s kidding himself into thinking that he might be ahead of schedule.

Because his bout with Overeem is still well over three months away, the latter possibility actually strikes me as the more probable possibility. We don’t really know where Lesnar is in his training, but it stands to reason he’s not into the heavy stuff yet. When he gets to that point, maybe then he’ll realize that his mind is writing checks that his body can’t cash.

That would not surprise me. Lesnar does have a certain bravado about him, and that’s just the kind of thing that would lead him to schedule a fight before he was expected to be ready for one. If he can come back and fight well, he will cement himself as the ultimate badass.

If Lesnar doesn’t fight well, on the other hand, every MMA fan in the world is going to delight in telling Lesnar, “I told you so.”

Apparently, that’s a risk Lesnar is willing to take. That too, is not surprising.

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