UFC
Strikeforce Champ Luke Rockhold: With Brock Lesnar retired, focus should shift to "true fighters"
Jan 6, 2012 - 10:00:21 AM Strikeforce Champ Luke Rockhold: With Brock Lesnar retired, focus should shift to "true fighters"

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

With the way Brock Lesnar finished out his MMA career, many will - and already have - gloss over any positives in his MMA career to criticize his general involvement in the sport. Strikeforce Middleweight Champ Luke Rockhold is one such person, as he went after Lesnar as "not a true fighter" in an interview with ESPN1100/98.9 FM in Las Vegas (via Yahoo! Sports).

"I think he was just playing a role," Rockhold said. "I saw right through him. His confidence looked very ... it didn't appear real... I almost saw his lip quivering as he was walking into the cage. He just looked like he was playing a role. He was kind of believing his own hype that people were putting in his ear. I saw true confidence out of Overeem and a true fighter."

He said he at least understood what Lesnar brought in terms of new viewers to the sport, but now he says the attention needs to move elsewhere.

"I think he brought a whole new audience to the sport. So I can't exactly say it's a negative," Rockhold said. "People really need to see who the true fighters are. Lesnar's not the best in the world. He just got the right matchups and the right fights."

Penick's Analysis: The revisionist history on Brock's career continues to be ridiculous. To just shrug off what he did accomplish in the UFC as "the right matchups and the right fights" is a vast oversimplification. It's not like Lesnar rose to the top by rolling through guys like Kimbo Slice, or rolling through a bunch of "easy" fights. He consistently took the biggest fights and biggest challenges available to him, and to continually rip on him after the fact because he was beaten by two of the best in the world in his last two fights is spiteful.