Keller's Take
KELLER'S BLOG: Lesnar is not a contender for best Pound for Pound fighter, but all heavyweights shouldn't be excluded
Aug 11, 2009 - 1:11:44 PM KELLER'S BLOG: Lesnar is not a contender for best Pound for Pound fighter, but all heavyweights shouldn't be excluded

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BY WADE KELLER, MMATORCH SUPERVISING EDITOR

In the midst of this discussion regarding Brock Lesnar, let me stress - although I did include this in my original blog - that I don't think Brock Lesnar is the best Pound for Pound fighter in MMA. My point was that when you are a color commentator for WEC or UFC and you're discussing both the best Pound for Pound fighters and the best American-born martial artists, and you don't even gloss over the name of the Heavyweight Champion who just beat you, it comes across as a potentially lacking objectivity or motivated by spite. If another commentator left Lesnar off his list, I might not have thought twice. But if you're going to mention several contenders for P4P best and several contenders for best American-born fighter and you don't get around to at least acknowledging Lesnar, it can be seen by some viewers as an unfair exclusion.

I fully understand that "Pound for Pound" rankings is meant to differentiate fighters who would beat one another (since Lesnar would beat B.J. Penn, I think we'd all agree) from fighters who are the best in their weight category. However, I think it'd be unfair to exclude all heavyweights all the time from that classification. Some day, whether it's Lesnar or Fedor or Shane Carwin or a 15 year old kid who weighs a natural 200 pounds and still growing who is working out in Brazil right now training to enter UFC, there will be a heavyweight who regardless of his size will be considered the best all-around martial artist. His size shouldn't be used against him if he is considered the best all-around fighter.

Now, in defense of Mir's comments, he may very fairly exclude Lesnar from any P4P consideration since Lesnar is clearly winning this early in his MMA career because of his massive size advantage. He hasn't faced someone who is equal in size with more experience yet, much less someone bigger who's considered a legit top heavyweight. Mir also might not consider Lesnar a "martial artist" since he was listing American-born martial artists and Lesnar's background, other than a lifetime of amateur wrestling including an NCAA title, is limited to a few years of martial arts training.

My point was and is that Mir, for the sake of viewers who aren't reading MMA websites on a daily basis, should have acknowledged the top draw in UFC and explained why he wasn't at the top of either of those lists. Just explaining himself - and there's a great case to be made for excluding Lesnar - would have kept him from potentially looking petty by ignoring perhaps the most well known MMA fighter in the world right now (for better or for worse).