As the sport grows in popularity, fans demand an image. Basketball has seen guys like Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe, and LeBron. Football has boasted poster-boys such as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in recent times.

So who is, or may become, the face of MMA?

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True MMA loyalists may say Fedor Emilenenko. While I would agree that pound-for-pound he may be the best fighter in MMA, he has yet to join the bandwagon of what has become the juggernaut of MMA, The UFC.

So, looking at the talent that seems to ooze from the UFC, who could it possibly be?

How about a guy who after just 4 professional fights was given a shot at, and won, the UFC Heavyweight Title?

That Guy is Brock Lesnar.

Brock was an All-American wrestler in his college days at Minnesota, and transformed himself quickly into what became one of the most popular wrestlers in Vince McMahon’s version of Motley Crue’s White Trash Circus, the WWE. He was “crowned” the youngest champion in WWE history, and given  the nickname “The Next Big Thing”.

But Lesnar walked away from the WWE in 2004 for a short stint in the NFL as a lineman for the Minnesota Vikings. After being cut before the end of the preseason, Lesnar contemplated his next move, eventually turning to MMA.

His first UFC fight pitted him against UFC headliner Frank Mir, Heavyweight Champion, in the UFC. He came out firing, but inexperience took over as Frank Mir would eventually submit him with a knee bar in the first round.

Lesnar would bounce back quickly, defeating Heath Herring and Randy Couture, securing himself a rematch against Frank Mir at UFC 100, this time for Mir’s title.

Lesnar learned from his mistakes in his first bout with Mir, and would control Mir on the ground, eventually securing a win via TKO. Lesnar was the champ after only four fights in the UFC.

He then made a string of controversial comments and gestures: flipping off the crowd, talking trash to Mir, mentioning that he may even “get on top of his wife” later that evening, and putting the cherry on top by denouncing the main sponsor for UFC 100, Bud Light, by saying “they won’t pay me nothin’” then proceding to promote his sponsor, Coors Light. Lesnar would later apologize for his actions.

Here’s the point: agree or disagree, Brock Lesnar has become the face of the UFC, and in turn, the face of MMA. Whether you love him or hate him, that’s the point. He’s young, He’s exciting. He’s controversial. Don’t expect any of that to change any time soon.

Everyone knows who he is, and whether he is liked or not does not matter. This truly makes Brock Lesnar — already The Next Big Thing — the face of MMA.

UFC 100

• UFC 100 Date: Saturday July 11th
• UFC 100 Start Time 7pm PT/10pm ET
• UFC 100 TV: Live only on Pay Per View

UFC 100 Betting Lines and Predictions:

Brock Lesnar (Heavyweight Champion) -240 Vs. Frank Mir (Interim Heavyweight Champion) +190

It seems like only yesterday that Brock Lesnar was F-5ing the Big Show on WWE Smackdown, my how time flies. Lesnar is now 2-1 in the UFC and appears to be unstoppable. His combination of size, redneck fervor, and brute force seems to have turned him into some kind of superhuman fighting manufactured home owner.

Back in 2004 Frank Mir captured the Heavyweight Title, then was injured in a motorcycle accident. It was two years before he returned to the octagon, and two more years before he returned to title holder status. The man is a submission expert and seems to have figured out how to win on his feet.

Mir welcomed Lesnar to the UFC by allowing Brock to pound on his face then making him tap out to an ankle lock in the first round. Brock hates Mir for that and for not wearing Death Clutch T-shirts in every interview.

What makes this pick problematic for me is the first fight. Mir said, in a few interviews, he was going to wait for Brock to expose his legs and then attack them because wrestlers tend to forget about them. While Mir was getting pounded by Lesnars meet hooks, he found Brock’s legs, and then attacked them. That says a lot to me about both guys. One, Lesner was relaying on his power and wasn’t paying attention to Mir. Two, Mir actually gameplans.

My Pick: Brock Lesnar… though I don’t feel good about it.

Georges St-Pierre (Welterweight Champion) -300 Vs. Thiago Alves+220

The big news coming into this fight is that Thiago Alves is near making weight. Yeah, nothing about the actual match up. I guess that becomes a big deal when you cut weight to fight at 170 but walk around over 200lbs. Also, he has a history of missing weight for big fights (ok one big fight, but it was the one which gave him this fight).

Georges St-Pierre, the man is invincible. He is like MMAs’ Rambo. He will out wrestle a wrestler, submit a BJJ blackbet, KO and standup fighter, and then shake your hand, bow and wish you the best after he wins. After it’s all said and done he will have probably boinked your sister and you’ll shrug it off saying “Well, that guys good.”

This is where I usually give the underdog some kind of fighting chance then mention what the favorite does well. Alves is good at eating and knocking people out; GSP is great at everything else. This money line may be too close (and that line will decide my fate when Alves hits a flash KO and GSP falls while cursing my name)

My Pick: Georges St-Pierre

Jon Jones -450 Vs. Jake O’Brien +325

Yeah there are some bigger fights on the main card like Fitch Vs. Thiago, the TUF coach fight of Henderson Vs. Bisping, or the two grizzled vets Coleman Vs. Bonnar, but this fight is much more interesting. Not because it will be a back and forth battle between two guys fighting for their livelihoods; or because the two men hate each other and it will quickly divulge into an old fashion slug fest. This is interesting because one of these guys is two fights away from being a headliner, and the other guy is from my hometown.

Jon “Bones” Jones is one good opponent or two more wins away from being the UFC’s next big star. He’s only 21 years old but he is already 8-0 in MMA. In two UFC fights he has pounded his way to decision victories. His last fight should have ended in a spectacular KO via a spinning elbow, but Stephen Bonnar somehow stumbled his way back into a defensive position and was able to make it through the rest of the match while getting manhandled. This guy is fast, powerful, and a showman.

Jake O’Brien isn’t exacly someone to overlook though. He had a lot of success as a heavyweight until he ran into the Pitbull Andrei Arlovski. He suffered one more defeat after that and has decided to drop weight to fight in the stacked Light-Heavyweight division. If Jones wasn’t such a young phenom, I would expect to see something out of O’Brien. Though this fight isn’t on the main card, I would look forward to seeing it.

My Pick: Jon “Bones” Jones

Let’s start with the news from the reigning champions of MMA, the UFC.

UFC 100 would be a huge event no matter what was on the card. The number 100 is a milestone many tried to keep MMA from reaching. Just think back to the late 90’s, when John McCain was petitioning to get MMA banned in the US, the UFC was just getting out of it’s “No Holds Barred” era, and many people viewed the sport as “human cock fighting”. Say what you will about the Feritta brothers, Dana White, and the TapouT Crew (one of whom passed away this week), but without them MMA would have never made it this far.

Just over a month ago it seemed White and company planned on relying on the number “100″ itself to sell the event. They shot down rumors of all titles being on the line that night, they made clear the superfight of our generation between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre wouldn’t happen, and they had planned to have Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir have their rematch to unify the Heavyweight title at UFC 98. Well what a difference a month makes.

None of this is “official” yet, but the current plans for UFC 100 have Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping facing off in the traditional battle of Ultimate Fighter coaches, GSP is supposed to defend his title against Thiago Alves, and of course the much delayed rematch between Frank Mir and Brock Lesnar for the unification of the UFC Heavyweight Title.

While the UFC is trying to make UFC 100 something special, they still had a UFC 98 that was missing a main event. It was initially announced that if Quintin “Rampage” Jackson defeated Keith Jardine at UFC 96 he would face off with “Sugar” Rashad Evans for the UFC’s Light Heavyweight Title. Rampage defeated Jardine, had a face off with Evans immediately following the fight, and promptly had to pull out of the fight.

It appears Rampage will be undergoing surgery on his jaw to fix an injury suffered during training for his bout against Wanerlei Silva last December. Now Evans is set to face off against Lyoto Machida. While it is much to early to make predictions, I can tell you that the champion is the early underdog in this fight. Not that I would ever gamble online, but if I did, I may have already taken Evans at +160 in this one.

In order to move away from UFC news, I would like to mention that I will be attending Wrestlemania 25 on April 5th in Houston, Texas. What does this have to do with MMA you ask? Let me tell you, part of this week’s big news involved two former WWF/E champions.

Former UFC Heavyweight and WWF Intercontinental Champion Ken Shamrock was supposed to face the former WWE US and ECW World Champion Bobby Lashley at the upcoming Roy Jones Jr.-promoted Boxing/MMA March Badness event. Well, Ken Shamrock has since been suspended for a year from fighting within the US due to testing positive for steroids. Lashley is now scheduled to face off against Clay Guidas’ bigger, not-as-talented brother Jason. Lashley has come out in the last few days saying he wouldn’t mind taking the Shamrock fight to Japan where they don’t uphold US suspensions.

My last little bit of news involves two of the most entertaining fighters in MMA.

Frank Shamrock (adoptive and estranged brother of Ken) will be facing off against perpetual menace to society Nick Diaz. For the record, I am a Frank Shamrock fan. I want to see him fight and I enjoy his spirited verbal sparring most of the time. Nick Diaz I see as a person who has no respect for the sport and the prototype of all that is wrong with meat head fans/fighters. That being said, I am super excited that Strikeforce is making this match-up happen. It could turn into the most entertaining build up to a match since Ali Foreman. As we get closer to the April 11th Showtime fight I will preview more, but for now I will just leave you with quotes from both men. These come courtesy of Cagepotato.com:

“Someone asked me the other day how my comeback was going so I guess I’ve come back. I love fighting. I love this art. I want to thank Nick Diaz for the opportunity and just warn him that when I punch his head and he lands in the second row he’ll need someone to catch him.” — Frank Shamrock

“Frank can talk all he wants, but I’m going to beat him up. Let’s see how much he fights back.’’ — Nick Diaz

As mentioned above, this match was to unify the Heavyweight title Lesnar had won from Randy “The Natural” Coture at UFC 91 last November, and the Interm Heavyweight Title Mir won from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in December at UFC 92. Mir’s upset victory not only garnered him that interim title, but it added heat to the unification bout since he defeated Lesnar in the first round of his UFC debut.

Now to more immediate info.

UFC 96 is live this Saturday on PPV. As has been my duty in the past, I’m going to give you a look into the money lines, the backgrounds, and my feelings on a few of the fights. First lets his the specifics:

UFC 96 Live on Pay-Per-View, Saturday March 7th, 10pm est. All lines courtesy of BetUs.com.

Quintin “Rampage” Jackson (-350) v Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine (+250)

The top fight on this event will see one of my all time favorites take on one of the ugliest men in the business. Rampage has been up and down over the last year. He lost the Light-Heavy title to Forrest Griffin, decided to stop eating and sleeping for a week, went for a highly publicized drive that resulted in injuries and damages to other people and their cars, fired his trainer, and joined a new camp in England. After all of that he still found it in him to turn out the lights on Wanderlei Silva and win the Knockout of the Night award back at UFC 92 in December. It’s rumored if Rampage wins, his next fight will be to reclaim the Light-Heavy title against a surging Rashad Evans.

There isn’t a lot of nice things I have to say about Keith Jardine. He has never wronged me personally and I haven’t met him. As a fighter I just don’t like him.

He is a guy who fights up to the talent level of whoever he’s fighting. That tells me he is lazy. He’s beaten both Forrest Griffin and Chuck Liddell, but during this span he has also lost to a failing Wanderlei Silva (who placed one hand on Keith’s neck and used the other to punch him ugly) and a worthless Houston Alexander.

What I am saying is Keith wins fights he should lose and loses fights he should win. His best bet at beating Rampage is by using leg kicks and hoping he can cause the same type damage Forrest Griffin did against Jackson.

My Pick: Rampage via KO in the First.

Gabriel “Napo” Gonzaga (-160) V. Shane Carwin (+130)

This is a fight I want to watch. I have no idea what is going to happen in it, but we have one guy in Gonzaga who has the ability to have really fun bouts, and we have a guy in Carwin who is something of an up and comer. Gonzaga has a two-fight win streak going, and both have been dominate. That being said Fabrico Wedum and Randy Couture both TKO’ed him not that long ago.

Shane Carwin is someone I don’t know much about. I have watched his fights without ever really remembering him, of course that probably speaks more to my alcohol consumption then to his memorability. What I have learned about Carwin is that he is a wrestler by nature and he looks like he belongs in the WWE. Most importantly, he has never had to go out of the first round to get a win.

I don’t see it being out of the realm of reasonability that, with Mir out, this becomes a #1 contenders match. Whoever wins gets a shot at Lesnar at 98? I know it’s a bit of a stretch, but it would help the UFC add some last minute heat to a PPV which is seriously lacking buzz.

Just for you the reader, as I was finishing this article I happened across an interview with both Gonzaga and Carwin. It is because of this interview I am changing my prediction:

My Pick: Gonzaga via armbar in the second

Outside of these two fights, there isn’t a whole lot for me to add to this prediction. The actual PPV card is a bit weak for the UFC. Sure the Pete Sell Vs. Matt Brown match could turn into a slug fest, but neither man will turn into a title contender by winning. I am personally hoping to see Matt “The Hammer” Hamill drop to the new comer Mark Muno, but that is solely based on the fact Muno trains with Urijah Faber.

What is probably the most interesting fight on this card is the Brandon Vera v Michael Patt. It’s not interesting because of the matchup, but because Vera is within one loss of becoming a sports cautionary tale. He spent a year in a contract holdout to make huge money, pissed people off, got what he wanted, came back and hasn’t been impressive at all since. If Vira looses this fight, he will have gone from main event-caliber name to a pink slip in less then a year. After having watched the fighters weigh in, Patt looks like the town drunk, but Vera looked like he was already beaten. I wont be suprised if this goes to a decision or if Vera looses via TKO.

First off I need to mention a new fighter has broken onto my “Must buy Pay-Per-View” list. We called him “Beard Guy”, but his god given name is Dustin Hazelett. He won me over by coming out to CCR’s Bad Moon Rising, then solidified his spot on my must-watch list by nearly breaking the arm of Tamdam McCroy with a reverse arm bar. Then, in the post fight interview, Hazelett told Joe Rogan his goal is to get the most “Submission of the Night” awards. This kid had me at CCR, but now I’m hooked.

In other awesomeness last night, Jeremy Stephens showed us all why HD is so important to professional fighting. The uppercut he landed on Rafael dos Anjos looked like it was straight out of a movie. The slow motion replay reminded me of that scene in Snatch where Brad Pitt’s character takes the uppercut and almost goes out for the night. Anjos’ face was whipped across his own head, the saliva flowing out his mouth while his eyes rolled a jackpot, and it showed why standard definition has no place in my UFC viewing.

While on the subject of slow motion replays, Garberial Gonzaga’s knockout on Josh Hendricks didn’t look like much until they replayed it. The near side replay it almost looks like Gonzaga’s fist hit Hendricks chin, then slid down to his shoulder and went through his body. It was sick.

Now of course, Kenny Florian fought tonight, and while he is on my “Must Buy PPV” list, it was pretty much by-the-numbers domination by Ken Flo. Nothing too spectacular about that fight.

Best fight of the night, according to my living room, saw Aaron Riley defeat Jorge Gurgel via unanimous decision. This was the only fight all night which went the distance. These two pounded the snot out of eachother and put in a hell of an effort. I’m glad the UFC was able to get this on the telecast.

Now we get to the main event. Brock Lesnar Vs. Randy Couture. For those who don’t know, Brock Lesnar was an NCAA wrestling champion and he held the WWE World Title on many occasions. Couture has been something of a mutant in the world of MMA. He held the heavyweight title at the age of 45. He has retired, come back to won the belt, then fought with the UFC over contract issues (read: money), and spent the last year on the shelf. Randy Couture put in a hell of a first round, and managed to wear Lesnar down a bit. He even opened a cut above Lesnar’s eye. Lesnar’s freakishly large self was able to finally get some solid leather on Couture’s face in the second round. Randy Couture went down, Brock Lesnar pounced on him and became the first person to ever hold both the WWE World title and the UFC Heavyweight title.

Overall this was a solid event. We saw some some great jiu-jitsu, a few spectacular knockouts, and a changing of the guard. If you are at all interested in MMA I would suggest going out and finding a way to see this event.

[tags]mma, ufc, brock lesnar, randy couture[/tags]