In mixed martial arts we have a bad tendency to write our narratives in stone, preferring pen even in the early stages of a fighter’s career when a pencil would probably be a better choice. Oft-injured UFC champion Cain Velasquez is the perfect example.
It seemed likely that Velasquez would become the best heavyweight fighter of all time. He ran through living legend Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira like an out-of-control bus, finished champion Brock Lesnar with a flurry of punches and put the kind of sustained hurting on poor Junior dos Santos that you might only see once in a lifetime.
Every tool was there—work ethic, athleticism, will and a multitude of skill. It felt right to proclaim him the greatest of all time. So, collectively, many did, leapfrogging Nogueira, Randy Couture and even the great Fedor Emelianenko in a rush to glory.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Hall of Fame. First, Cain’s rotator cuff gave out on him, not once, but twice. His knee, seemingly, has followed suit, forcing him to withdraw from his UFC 180 defense against Fabricio Werdum on November 15 in Mexico City.
In eight years as a professional, his body has held up long enough to get through just 14 prizefights. It’s a minor tragedy.
Velasquez, when history is written, might end up being a “what might have been story,” a fighter with the potential, but not the longevity, for immortality, Gale Sayers rather than Walter Payton.
Conversely, just as we’re too quick to crown kings, we’re too fast on the trigger when it’s time to proclaim a fighter’s career has run its course. MMA is a sport of instant hot takes. No one simply loses. They are exposed. A fighter doesn’t get knocked out. His glass jaw is revealed. We build them, sometimes it seems, simply to knock them back to Earth.
Here the example is Mark Hunt, the man who will step into Velasquez’s shoes and fight Werdum for the interim championship. The former K-1 kickboxing champion was such a non-entity when Zuffa bought the Pride Fighting Championships that the UFC brass wanted to buy him out of his contract rather than fly him in to fight.
“I told him, ‘Look man, we’ll pay you what we owe you for the rest of the contract and go ahead and do your thing,'” UFC President Dana White told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole. “But he got so mad when I said that. ‘[Expletive] you! [Expletive] you! I’m not doing that. I’m fighting.'” And look at him. It turns out that in the long run, he was right and we were wrong. He’s earned 10 times what he’d have made if we’d just paid him off and here he is fighting for the title.”
And, here’s the thing—who could blame White for not wanting anything to do with him? Already 36 years old, Hunt was coming off five consecutive losses, including defeats at the hands of middleweights Melvin Manhoef and Gegard Mousasi. These weren’t just any losses either. For the most part, even against men he massively outweighed, he never even looked competitive.
For Hunt, MMA was a work in progress when Zuffa came calling. His kickboxing reputation made him an attractive target for MMA promoters who didn‘t exactly provide him a sensible progression or an opportunity to get his feet wet in the new sport, matching him first with Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida and following the judoka with a series of the sport’s very best.
“I was offered $250,000 for my first fight with PRIDE. I didn’t know what the sport was, I just wanted a different challenge,” Hunt told New Zealand’s 2on4 Sports. “I said these ground fighters are mud, they’re idiots. Like girls rolling around. But I got taught a big, big lesson.”
Despite his lackluster resume, Hunt talked his way into the UFC. Triumph, unfortunately, was not immediate. The road to championship glory started with another speed bump. His first UFC fight, too, was typical Hunt. Scheduled in an untelevised prelim, the legendary striker was forced to jerk the curtain at UFC 119 in an embarrassing loss to Sean McCorkle, a better internet troll than he was a fighter.
Hunt was forced to submit to a straight armbar, the kind of submission hold that isn’t supposed to work in professional mixed martial arts. Against Hunt, however, it was all too effective, ending his night in just over a minute.
Something happened, however, on the path to oblivion. In his next fight, the last guaranteed on the contract the UFC inherited, he knocked out Brock Lesnar‘s training partner, Chris Tuchscherer, earning himself a reprieve. A decision over Ben Rothwell and a knockout of Cheick Kongo followed and then a shot for the ages—a walk-away knockout win over Stefan Struve.
After the fight everyone was amused, but not everyone was sold. Bloody Elbow’s T.P. Grant applauded Hunt, but said the big man should stay far away from a top contender:
Mark Hunt and Stefan Struve put on one of the best bad fights of all time. From Hunt pulling mount to Struve going for an armbar without the arm, it was a giggle-fest on top of being a fun, back and forth fight. Hunt deserves a chance against a real contender, but it won’t end well for him. I’d rather see him continue to have entertaining scraps with mid-level heavyweights.
No one, however, is laughing now. An epic battle with former title challenger Antonio Silva assured that, the kind of back-and-forth display that reminds you just how perilous stepping into the cage can truly be. That fight, a draw, made Hunt a serious contender for the first time. A knockout of Roy Nelson affirmed it.
And now, without warning, the unthinkable is here. Hunt, just 5-6 when he forced his way into the UFC, has gone 5-2-1 in the world’s greatest fight promotion. And, though he accepted an offer from Dana White earlier this week at over 300 pounds, though he hasn’t trained in weeks, though the fight will take place far from home and thousands of feet above sea level, Hunt is ready to write a final chapter in his modern fairy tale.
“There’s not enough time to have a camp, but there’s no way I’m going to turn down an opportunity like this,” he told ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. “I wasn’t even meant to be here anyways. I’m not supposed to be here, you know what I mean? But in my mind I’m supposed to be here and here I am.
“This is what I’m supposed to do and I believe the hard work has paid off. Of course, I want to go in the first round and try to knock his face off. Hopefully, I can knock him out before the second round. We’ll see what happens.”
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