FACEBOOK TWITTER RSS APP PODCAST Opinion & Analysis : Staff Columnists ENNIS: Lay of the Land 7/1/09 - The Heavyweights

Jul 1, 2009 - 3:44:47 PM
By: Shawn Ennis, MMATorch Senior Columnist
The Fight: Brock Lesnar (Champion, 3-1) vs. Frank Mir (Interim Champion, 12-3)

The freak of nature meets the suddenly-cardiotastic jiu jitsu ace in a rematch of two of the most hotly-contested minutes you'll ever see. Lesnar vs. Mir is as good as it gets in the heavyweight division when there's no Fedor around, if nothing else simply by virtue of selling a fight.

The Stakes: The Undisputed UFC Heavyweight Title

The grandest prize in the sport. Fedor may be the best heavyweight around, but like it or not, the UFC heavyweight title means something, and it's the only promotional heavyweight title that does.

Upcoming Contender Fights

As is usually the case, the heavyweight division is not so active in the upcoming months (at least in the sense that not much has been announced.) There's one little fight that might interest you, however, coming up at UFC 102. It's the fight that I thought would determine the champion when this mini-tournament began: Randy Couture (16-9) vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (31-5-1). Believe it or not, this could very well be a title eliminator fight. I think it will depend on how both men perform, and how the winner looks in victory. There's enough intrigue to sign a rematch of either Lesnar-Couture (was it a lucky punch? Will Couture have a better gameplan this time?) or Mir-Nogueira (was the stoppage a fluke? Was it because Big Nog was sick?), but there are probably a lot of nebulous intangibles that go along with whether the winner here would automatically get a title shot. Now, should the winners turn out to be Couture-Mir or Nogueira-Lesnar, you can just about bet the house that your title fight will be one of those combinations come time for the next defense.

Other Future Possibilities

Should neither Couture nor Nogueira get a title shot, the next viable option is likely Shane Carwin (11-0). I put him in my "Step or Two Away" section in the last Lay of the Land, and he certainly took that step toward contention when he knocked out Gabriel Gonzaga (10-4) in March. There are a few things that could possibly keep Carwin from getting a title shot, though. First off, there's the question of timing. Carwin's last fight was in March at UFC 96. I would imagine the UFC will want to headline their end-of-year PPV with a heavyweight title fight, at least if Lesnar wins as he's probably the bigger draw of the two (although if Mir wins in impressive fashion, he certainly improves his drawing power as well.) Would they give Carwin a nine-month layoff between fights when he's challenging for the title? Or would he need to have another fight, say at UFC 103 in September? And if he does fight in September, who would he face? The most obvious answer for a title eliminator would be Cain Velasquez (6-0), but he just fought at UFC 99, and if Velasquez were to win a title eliminator in September, that would put him on track for three fights in six months with the final fight being for the belt. That may be a bit much. That's in addition to the fact that Velasquez only has six fights, and with a little more experience he could be an absolute wrecking machine. They may not want to spoil the inevitable Carwin-Velasquez showdown just yet. (Of course, there's always something to be said for striking while the iron is lukewarm.) No, if I were a betting man I'd go with the winner of Couture-Nog and the winner of Lesnar-Mir battling it out for the title come the end of the year. There is a third possibility, however, and it's even less likely. But it's fun to talk about, so come with me on this journey for a second.

Let's just say that Josh Barnett (24-5) happens to be able to take out the near-invincible Fedor Emelianenko (30-1) in August at the third Affliction event. What if the UFC could sign Barnett to a contract at that point? Is there a better heavyweight in the world to make into a superstar without having him set foot in the cage before a title fight? I don't think so. I think between Barnett's talking ability and the abundance of highlights that Zuffa owns with the Pride library and their own archival footage, Barnett could be the most marketable challenger to the heavyweight crown out there. I can't even fathom the awesomeness of pre-fight hype for an end-of-year Barnett vs. Lesnar or Barnett vs. Mir title fight. Like I said, it's a slim chance, but it's fun to think about.

In Other News…

There are not a lot of newsworthy happenings coming up in the UFC heavyweight division outside of the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter. Part of that is due to the thinness of the ranks. There's a lot of talent out there, but most of the bigger names are already under contract to other promotions, and there's not a ton of buzz about up and coming blue-chip talent that could challenge the top of the ranks in the next little while. The race at this point is to see who can make the most marketable stars of tomorrow among the heavyweights. There's never been a transcendent, widely-known world's greatest heavyweight in MMA (Fedor is the best, no doubt, but no one knows who he is), and whoever finds that guy first is going to be sitting on a cash cow. In the meantime, the UFC has guys on the rise like Junior dos Santos (8-1), Tim Hague (10-1) and maybe a guy like Stefan Struve (17-3), but it remains to be seen whether any of these prospects will pan out in the long run. So, even while the division is experiencing a jolt at the moment toward the top of the division, we'll see what happens after the next one or two title fights.

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