December 30th will mark the return of the most polarizing fighter in UFC history, as Brock Lesnar will make his way back inside the Octagon.
The UFC will likely pull out all the stops to market this event, which features its most marketable star fighting for the first time since October of 2010.
Lesnar’s opponent at UFC 141 is former Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem, a fantastic fighter and a huge test for Lesnar in his first fight in over a year, but Overeem has never fought inside the Octagon and is an unknown amongst casual fans.
The bulk of the promotion for the fight is going to fall on Lesnar, and rightfully so, but is that what’s good for the sport or the organization?
The fact is that Dana White and the UFC depend on a former professional wrestler with a 5-2 career record to give them monster PPV buys and be the face of the sport.
Look, I get it, Lesnar had a ton of hype and brought a lot of fans over from the WWE when he made the crossover to MMA, and it would have been stupid for the UFC not to try and cash in on his popularity.
But the fact remains that Lesnar is just 4-2 inside the UFC and while he has fought some of the toughest competition in the sport, he still has a long way to go before he is considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.
Ask a random fan on the street who the best MMA fighter in the world is and the odds are you’ll get one of two names: Brock Lesnar or Kimbo Slice.
This has to make most fans sick to their stomach.
As long as Lesnar remains in the UFC, he will continue to steal the spotlight and the headlines from far more deserving fighters. This isn’t his fault and is a little unfortunate for Lesnar, but his popularity is undeserved from an MMA standpoint and it will only hurt the sport if he decides to stick around.
ESPN loves to cover Lesnar’s fights, the mainstream media gets excited the week of every one of his bouts and people who know nothing about the sport are all of the sudden hearing more about MMA in just seven days than they have all year.
It’s not a good thing if the poster boy for the sport has a record that barely reaches .500 and is about as friendly as a rabid pit bull.
MMA deserves a better ambassador for the sport, and while it’s obvious that Lesnar wants nothing to do with that role, he’s stuck with it and until he walks away, the UFC will be stuck in the same position that they currently are: a niche sport.
For those of us that want to see the sport continue to grow and eventually break into the mainstream, one of the biggest steps towards that is becoming more and more clear.
Brock Lesnar needs to disappear.
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