Five Things We Learned About Brock Lesnar At UFC 116

Any time UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar fights, people watch. Why? Simply because he’s a freak of nature. Lesnar possesses more size, power, and athleticism in one body than we’ve ever seen combined in MMA. What’s more, he talks a lot of junk and has the ability to hype a fight, via his professional wrestling background. In fact, his pro and collegiate wrestling experiences have also brought a tremendous amount of fans to MMA, simply so they can continue to watch him.

That said, we all wondered aloud how Lesnar would do against a man with supposedly similar size and athleticism in Shane Carwin coming into their UFC 116 encounter. Beyond the fact that Lesnar was able to win, here’s what we found out that we didn’t necessarily know heading into their fight.

1. Lesnar has the heart of a champion: Every other fighter that had tasted Carwin’s power had either gone to sleep or saw a referee pulling him off of them moments later. But Lesnar was able to persevere through not just one big shot, but a torrent of them. He was cut; he was bloody. But somehow, he made it through a gripping round one.

“I just had to weather the storm,” Lesnar said after the fight. “He’s got some heavy shots. I just had to hang on and I knew he was getting tired. Each shot was less dramatic than the other and I just had to let him go.”

When you add in the fact that less than a year ago Lesnar was lying in a Canadian hospital bed with career threatening surgery for diverticulitis hanging over him, his heart is just that much more pronounced. Love him or hate him, Lesnar is willing to put it all on the line to win.

2. Lesnar still needs to work on his striking skills: Some guessed this coming into the Carwin fight. That said, it was hard to really know. After all, Lesnar had dropped Randy Couture with strikes in their previous encounter; he had also dizzied Frank Mir (first fight) and Heath Herring with his fists in earlier bouts.

But Carwin absolutely demolished him standing. In fact, Lesnar really just covered up once he tasted his opponent’s power and looked pretty uncomfortable for the short period of time he was left standing in the initial stanza. This has some believing that Cain Velasquez is going to do a number on him when they fight.

3. Lesnar has an excellent jaw: People often think that heart and a jaw go together, but they don’t always.  You can want to win and be willing to go through all types of adversity/injuries to do so and still have a jaw or chin that doesn’t allow you to stay awake once you get hit.

Anyway, if you can take one of Carwin’s power shots that means you have a good jaw. If you can take as many as Lesnar did, that means you’re a beast.

4. Lesnar is learning that MMA fans like a more humble champion than professional wrestling fans do: This one is easy. Look at the difference between the embarrassing way Lesnar acted after the Mir fight, and the way he acted after the Carwin encounter.

“I stand before you a humble champion,” Lesnar said after UFC 116. Enough said.

5. Lesnar Can Still Win Over MMA Fans: He hasn’t exactly been one of the more popular MMA champions to date (popular in a good way, anyhow). But after his victory over Carwin there were a heck of a lot more cheers for him than he’s heard after most of his wins.