Brock Lesnar: Offering Mir some more opinions following their UFC 100 boutThough only vague answers have been offered thus far on the imminent return of UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, UFC President Dana White has gone on record regarding the possibility of his return as early as the scheduled May 29th Las Vegas card, the card currently rumored as the night the Rashad Evans vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson fight will take place.

Lesnar expressed a sincere happiness to be healthy and back to training, and looks to the UFC heavyweight division now with a straightforward message: he is their champion.

Asked what he’ll do in preparation for whichever opponent he ends up fighting of the four he could potentially face, Lesnar smoothly answers "I'll just sit back, I'll sharpen my skills,” making no specific indications of his anticipations or expectations.

“I'll be prepared for either one of those guys (speaking of either Shane Carwin or Frank Mir), or if it's Nogueira, or if it's Velasquez," Lesnar told an ESPN SportsCenter analyst on Wednesday. "I know one thing... all them guys are ****ing their pants right now."

UFC President Dana White has specified that the winner of the forthcoming Shane Carwin/Frank Mir will be the instant number one contender for a title shot against Lesnar. As an additional contingency considering yet another unforeseen instance of either competitor not being available to fight for the titl;e within reasonable timeframe of their next fight, the benefactor then becomes the winner of the forthcoming Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira/Cain Velasquez fight.

During the broadcast, Brock was asked about a potential rubber match with Mir, the first fighter to hand Lesnar a loss in professional mixed martial arts. With this, Lesnar invited the possibility, revisiting his candid ways of speaking words that draws both his opponents’ attention and ire. The analyst asked if Brock would be okay with a third match facing Mir.

"Absolutely," Lesnar remarked without hesitation.

"You know what,” he continued, “I don't think I beat him as bad as I could. So for me to get my hands on that stalker again… Frank Mir's a stalker. It's been a while since I've had a stalker, but we'll take care of that if we ever face him again. I'd be delighted to fight Frank again."

Having recently cranked out a convincing win over French powerhouse Cheick Kongo, Mir has repeatedly voiced an obsessive interest in a rematch against Lesnar. As the only fighter to hold a win over him, Mir was absolutely trounced in their rematch, which took place at UFC 100 in July of 2009. There, Lesnar spent the better part of just under two-and-a-half rounds pummeling Mir into battered submission, finally sealing the deal by way of overwhelming offense and punches to his grounded opponent.

Hojak’s Editorial Take

Really? Mir’s serious?

The wisened Mir looks at this realistically, realizes he was lucky to catch Lesnar the first time, and concedes to the fact that no matter how much he weighs (he claims he walks around at 280 lbs. at present), Lesnar will always just be that much more functional, that much bigger and that much stronger than his own Jiu Jitsu will ever achieve for himself.

In their first fight, a panicked Lesnar needlessly turned his back to a grounded Mir to escape from the guard position, reacting hastily and impulsively to the potential sudden realization that he was on the ground with a BJJ black belt, though in no immediate danger. In their second fight, Lesnar retained his composure as he spent a combined six minutes, forty-eight seconds evading submission attempts while bringing lunchbox-sized hammer-fists down upon the face of Mir.

Since losing to Mir, Lesnar’s gone on to beat three consecutive fighters of note: Heath Herring, Randy Couture and Frank Mir in their rematch. In all three fights, Lesnar’s progressively gotten more comfortable competing with such substantial size and reach advantages, and has developed immensely in his short time facing upper-echelon veteran competition.

In my opinion, an already-tested Mir brings nothing surprising to the match-up a third time around. Fleet instinct won their first match against an inexperienced martial artist for him, and this is where his competitive viability begins and ends within this match-up’s threshold.

Mir’s cocky. Chances are he’s probably looking past the war machine that is Shane Carwin, an 11-0 force that’s finished each opponent he’s faced within the first half of the first round, Gabriel Gonzaga most recently.

Standing 6’2”, weighing 260 lbs. and boasting a size 5X glove (for comparison’s sake, Lesnar’s is 4X), Carwin is a BJJ brown belt that hits with the concussive, freight-train force. Frank’s previous losses have all come by way of grappling-proficient, heavy-hitting opponents who were both stronger, and in a majority of the cases, taller than Mir. Ian Freeman punched him into submission way back in 2002. Marcio “Pe De Pano” Cruz did the same in 2006. Nine months after that, Brandon Vera did the same. Finally, Lesnar did it convincingly in July of 2009.

Fans want to see Shane get his crack at the title, as Mir’s in for another one-sided brutalization should he somehow beat Carwin, and we’ve already seen that. The one guy with a hand bigger than the behemoth Lesnar, Shane’s fight with Lesnar both settles disputes and ends spectacularly, guaranteed.

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