Brock Lesnar is one of the most amazing athletes the sport of mixed martial arts has ever seen. But considering what he has been dealing with outside of the octagon, he is taking a huge risk fighting Alistair Overeem on December 30.
When it was announced earlier this year that Brock Lesnar’s diverticulitis had returned and that he would have to undergo surgery to correct the problem, it was widely believed that the earliest he would be able to return would be in early 2012.
Even if Lesnar was given a clean bill of health from his doctors, returning to fight just seven months after having 12 inches of your colon removed does not sound like an easy thing to do.
Add the fact that Lesnar has had problems with fighters who are good/great strikers, which Overeem is, and you have a recipe for disaster.
The only way that Lesnar can win this fight will be to wrestle Overeem to the ground, pound on him and try to lock in a submission, or hope that the referee stops the fight while he is on top, because there is no way that he can stand and trade with Overeem.
While Overeem is not a good wrestler, he does know how to defend against takedowns, as he proved against Fabricio Werdum in June, and make his opponents fight his kind of fight.
And, as Dave Meltzer of WrestlingObserver.com wrote, Lesnar’s strength and power are likely going to take a dip because he has been out of commission for so long.
Lesnar has the question of exactly how good his strength and his wrestling will be coming off a series of battles with Diverticulitis and surgery to remove the damaged parts of his intestine. There is also the question, at 34, having been off training for so long, and being smaller than he has been in the past, if that will mean a loss of power.
Lesnar deserves credit for taking this fight because he almost surely could have taken a fight against a lesser opponent, got the victory and taken a fight with Overeem later on, but he didn’t because he knew that this was a big money fight.
Unfortunately for Lesnar, money is the only thing that he will get out of this fight because there is no way that he can beat Overeem in a stand-up fight, which is what this match will turn into.
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