Dana White Has Very, Very, Very High Hopes for Brock Lesnar, Fedor Not So Much
(’Come on, Brock. What did we talk about? A little foundation is fine, but you go piling it on like this and it just makes you look desperate.’)
If you don’t like seeing Brock Lesnar in the UFC, and if you didn’t enjoy his appearance on E:60, you’re really not going to like this.
Maybe you hoped Dana White would give up on the former WWE star if he fails to beat Randy Couture. Maybe you just hoped he and his enormous traps would get stuck in a doorway somewhere in a remote part of Minnesota and he’d never be heard from again. Unfortunately for you, the second scenario is starting to sound more plausible than the first. Judging by Dana White’s remarks to The Sun, he seems to be absolutely smitten with Lesnar:
“It’s such an interesting fight because Couture is so good at coming up with plans for finding weaknesses in guys’ games and exposing them. But Lesnar’s such a different animal, this guy is so big, so strong and so fast at that weight it’s just phenomenal.
“For what he lacks in technique and knowledge, he makes up for in size, speed and power. Lesnar could go on to be the best heavyweight and the longest-reigning heavyweight - who knows what could happen with him.”
Who knows, indeed. He could go down in history as the greatest MMA fighter who ever lived. He could beat every heavyweight in the world, then travel into space to defeat intergalactic heavyweights. Instead of dying like a mortal man he could ascend to heaven on a winged white steed while angels sing a glorious song that churns the seas into a golden froth. Man, I have got to stop doing peyote in the afternoon.
The point is, it seems a little premature to get so worked up about a guy who’s 2-1 and has a bad habit of quitting stuff to go do other stuff, right? And then you hear this little afterthought thrown in there:
“If Couture loses to Lesnar, I don’t know how much more interest there is in a Fedor v Couture fight. I think you’d be looking at Fedor going up against whoever the best heavyweight at the time is.”
Okay, now I get it. White’s hedging his bets. If Couture wins, he’s still the champ and the UFC still has him under contract for two more fights. If Lesnar wins, it not only fits this heavyweight messiah storyline but it also kills the interest in a Fedor/Couture fight, or so Dana hopes.
You know who’s not so crazy about this plan? Fedor’s manager, Vadim Finklestein, who had this to say in a statement offered to FightLine.com:
Dana says UFC’s doors are wide open. Maybe they are. But these doors also shut tightly once the fighter signs with the organization. Randy Couture came back to the UFC and what now?
Instead of fighting the best in the promotion he has to fight a young upstart with 2-1 pro-record. Couture might not survive all the three contractual fights. I’m afraid that’s being made in order to finish the star which is Randy and not let him fight Fedor.
Finklestein goes on to say that Fedor doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone, that he can just hang out and fight Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett, and he likens Dana White to “a man with a big tasty pie who’s afraid that someone comes and bites a piece of it.”
I’m not sure that analogy helps make his point. If I had a big tasty pie, I doubt I’d want anyone biting pieces of it, either. You let one person do that, then pretty soon the whole neighborhood’s biting on your pie, and it’s so delicious, and word gets around, and…wait, what kind of pie is it? Goddamn peyote.
Written by admin on October 23rd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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