This says it way better than I can!
Lesnar backlash brims with double standards
By Dave Meltzer, Yahoo! Sports
Jul 17, 3:13 pm EDT
There have been 61 fighters in Ultimate Fighting Championship history who were pro wrestlers at one point or another. There are nine on the current UFC roster. Of the six fighters in the UFC Hall of Fame, three – Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn and Mark Coleman – dabbled in wrestling.
But UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar is the only one vilified for it.
It would be easy to say that the attitude Lesnar has displayed – and not his former profession – would be the reason for crowds’ reaction to him in his short UFC career. It would be easy to blame his actions in the cage after he beat Frank Mir at UFC 100 for the reaction of the crowd, fellow fighters and media afterward. Except it wouldn’t be entirely true.
When Lesnar stepped out of the dressing room for his first match with Mir in February 2008, no debuting fighter in UFC history was ever so heavily booed. At that point, he had done nothing to be judged on in his UFC career – except that in his two previous careers, as a college wrestler for the University of Minnesota and as a pro wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment, he had risen to the top.
The reaction was entirely based on the fact that he was a pro wrestler coming into the UFC. The reaction came from a fan base that judged him as somehow different from the pro wrestlers who came before him into UFC.
Of course, none of the former pro wrestlers came into the company with so much publicity and such a rich contract. None walked in with the sort of name value and curiosity which led to what was, at the time, among the most purchased pay-per-view shows in company history.
This is not a defense of anything he did after the fight. But the reaction to Lesnar’s postfight comments and his flipping the bird at fans is just the latest example of a double standard Lesnar has faced in his MMA career.
What if the Lesnar and Dan Henderson fights and postfights on Saturday night were transposed? If Lesnar had thrown that totally legal but devastating second blow on an already knocked-out foe – and remarked in his interview that he was doing it to shut Mir’s mouth – people would have spent the past week demanding that he be banned from the sport. And would Henderson have gotten nearly Lesnar’s heat if he had pulled the same postfight antics as Lesnar?
You want to deny there’s a double standard here?
As Georges St. Pierre continually took down Thiago Alves in their welterweight title fight, the crowd cheered every takedown. Even when St. Pierre wasn’t doing damage on the ground, he was being cheered wildly the entire fight.
In Round 2, as Lesnar had Mir on the ground and was punching his face in less than 30 seconds before the fight was over, there was a loud chant aimed at referee Herb Dean of “stand them up.”
This was a first in UFC history. Not the chant itself, but it being done when a fighter was pummeling the other and actually seconds away from winning. It was the first time a crowd hated a fighter so much that they were willing to pervert the entire framework of what the sport is supposed to be – that a fighter should do what he can to finish a fight – simply because they wanted that fighter to lose so badly.
Of all the pro wrestlers who have come into the sport, only two – Lesnar and non-UFC fighter Bobby Lashley – have ever been disrespected by fellow fighters for being a pro wrestler. In Lesnar’s four UFC fights, only one opponent didn’t throw some kind of variation on “It’s not the WWE,” at him before the fight. In hyping the match, Mir implied Lesnar was strong but clueless when it came to fighting. Heath Herring and his camp had complained behind the scenes to company officials that it was a joke he was even put in the ring with a fake pro wrestler, and made public comments about how the punches were going to be real.
The only opponent who didn’t disrespect Lesnar before the fight was Randy Couture. The only opponent Lesnar didn’t trash talk afterward was Couture. Coincidence?
And Mir probably won’t be the last, given the fact that his potential next opponent, Shane Carwin, already has played the pro-wrestling card in starting the hype.
“We have no scripts in this port, no predetermined earning amount and no predetermined outcomes,” Carwin said.
Saturday night’s perfect storm was a moment that will be remembered in the sport’s history. It marked the first time that a UFC fighter was the single most talked-about sports personality in the world, as pundits who spent years hyping the likes of Barry Bonds and Randy Moss suddenly found their moral compass and badmouthed Lesnar.
Lesnar never asked to become the biggest villain the sport has ever seen, but he’s also smart enough and experienced enough at it that he knows it’s not all a bad thing. While running down Bud Light – UFC’s leading sponsor – was not the best of
This is funny, there are 5 “answers”, but only 2 answers to the question that was asked.
This is “Yahoo Answers”, not “Yahoo ramblings about everything but an answer to the question”.
I asked, why MOST Brock haters are idiots, not, why are you an idiot about hating Brock.
Dan – for a guy that rips me for posting “another guy’s opinion”, you say “like the other guy said” a lot!
I didn’t ask why ALL Brock haters are idiots, just most.
I see the idiots stand out in the crowd though!
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Because people cant accept the fact that a WWE wrestler is coming in and dominating their sport.
Sadly it’s because of the WWE, and that he hasn’t put his due’s into the sport yet.
Many MMA fans the diehard old heads that we are, see him still as an outsider. we see idiot wwe fans and fanboys comming to our fight night events. It another evolution of the sport, but in oder to grow the new fans need to be educated.
in america we all have opinions, some people that have no business having them in the first place… i think he’s great for the sport, and i can’t wait to see him get tested. His post fight antics we’re pretty funny in my opinion, as well as a bunch of people at the Bdub’s i frequent monthly to watch them.
Dan your the man… Sloppy underserving…. SPRAWL AND BRAWL will beat Lesnar.
Lesnar flipped off the crowd, spit on a camera, and trashed his bosses top sponsor in his last fight. He’s not helping his situation. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, he’s an impressive athlete, but he is responsible for his own reputation. I know he was stoked after winning, and came from an entertainment background, but he should take a lesson from more gracious winners out there and you’ll see peoples opinion of him change as he wracks up the wins.
How can you call any one an idiot when you cannot even formulate your own opinion and express it yourself?
Lesnar should be proud of the legion of illiterate and ignorant fans he brings with him.
You cite one single article written by a Lesnar fan. Real convincing…
How about the fact that Brock was spoon fed a title shot while there were several contenders he was allowed to cut in front of. This was 100% a money maker move, which is called being a “sell out”. Dana White continues to sell the integrity of this sport for his huge short term gain.
Look at Carwin’s record, and how he finishes fights- nobody has even lasted HALF OF ROUND ONE vs Carwin. He finishes his fights in orderly fashion and is no gimmick. He was not allowed a title shot, this would not happen in any top sport, which is what mma is trying to be, in the top. How can lesser contenders bypass true contenders? What if they did that in the NFL? People would be pissed off and eventually lose much interest in the league.
Lesnar has nothing of a champion other than brute size. Skills lack, sportsmanship REALLY lacks, and he is a career hopper, following the scent of money. Look at his Wikipedia article, he was a bad sportsman in his couple months in the NFL on a preseason squad. It cites he was causing fights in the locker (his own TEAM) and had a flagrant tackle on a starting quarterback during a preseason game. He is too unprofessional and it’s that lack of respect that makes his peers dislike him. He undermines each sport he goes to.
Brock was even involved in lawsuits with the WWE. Has he gotten along in any short career of his? I don’t see it….
Are you f*cking kidding me? You call us idiots, and then post someone else’s opinion? Brock Lesnar had title shot when he was no where near deserving it, like the other guy said, that’s simply for money. He’s bringing WWE with him into the UFC, and nobody wants the loud screaming retarded fans that think the obvious script fighting is real. WWE fans are morons.
Like the other guy said, He has never had any respect for anything he took up, always being an aggressive disrespectful loud mouth. He’s huge and sweaty and his size is all he has, i die inside every time someone says hes even remotely fast. His skill is extremely sloppy. If you weren’t blind you could see every flaw about him and why hes hated.
Edit; I said ‘like the other guy said’ twice, because we agree.. because neither of us like lesnar. And there was no other way to word it. i didn’t copy his whole paragraph and re-post it like you did. i knew you would use it against me though.
It does not really matter what people think at all at this point because of what Brock did has made him as popular as ever like him or not and every Pay Per View that he is in going forward will have Dana White Laughing as he drives to the Bank ……………..
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