The return of AJ Powell’s MMAdness!: Overeem v Lesnar

Well, you might as well call me a famous German composer from the Baroque era, because I’m Bach!

Well, Back. Shit, guess that works better aloud. Anyway, fuck it, after a busy month of abusing my liver and the rest of my body at University, I’ve cleared space in my schedule to finally give back to you, the fans (fan?) , get my shit together and finally write another edition of MMAdness!

And seeing as we’re talking about returns from people having their internal organs attempt to kill them, we’re doing it big here! That’s right, we’re doing the next big thing, the beast, the 1 in 21-1 BRRRRRRRRRRRRROCK LLLLLLLLLESNAR (I swear I won’t do that too much.) vs “The Demolition Man” A.K.A “Ubereem”, Alistair Overeem.

 

Now, assuming you’ve had a passing interest in MMA/pro wrestling/the Minnesota Vikings in the past ten years, you’ve heard of Brock Lesnar. And if not, dude, get learning before he finds out and rips your throat out. Because he’s that terrifying. And constantly angry.

Anyway, hailing from Minnesota, which Fargo had conditioned me to view as Diet Canada, Lesnar grew up on a dairy farm, I assume carrying the cows or something, because by the time he was in his teens, he was larger than most adult men will ever become. He began wrestling in high school, leaving with a record of 33-0, which is pretty damn good.

This didn’t sate Lesnar however, who then left for the University of Minnesota to find fresh meat. By the time he left there, he held a record of 106-5 (Holy balls), and was a four time all american, and a two time national heavyweight champion. Put simply, dude was a monster.

This drew the attention of “Good ‘Ol JR” Jim Ross, the WWF/E’s talent scout at the time, who snapped Lesnar up. He then proceeded to cut a swath through the WWE, becoming the youngest ever World Champion (until a certain Legend Killer came along a few years later), quickly getting put into matches against the likes of Goldberg and the Undertaker.

Lesnar I mean. Can you imagine if JR was the one doing all that stuff? Shit dude. Skittles stock would skyrocket! Anyway, after a few years, Lesnar decided “Eh, fuck this travel nonsense” and decided that he was going to skedaddle and try his hand at Football.

However, that fell through pretty quickly, with Lesnar getting signed by the Minnesota Vikings and getting dropped shortly afterwards. After that, Lesnar decided that the UFC would be the best place for him!

Of course, Lesnar came in with the whole “PRO WRASSLIN IS FAKE DURR HURR” stank about him (a stank I imagine smells like baby oil and stale sweat. My favourite!), to which he quickly showed was a bunch of shite after a shaky start against Frank Mir as he proceeded to win the UFC heavyweight championship in his 3rd fight, via the art of punching every opponent he faced into jam.

However, it transpired he’d been suffering from something called “Diveticulitis”, which as it turns out, is pretty damn bad. Lesnar lost the title against Cain Velasquez, and subsequently missed his next couple of fights due to having a 12 inches of his colon removed. Which is a considerably amount.

However, he was able to steel himself and get back into shape in order to face the UFC’s newest heavyweight, Alistair Overeem.

Overeem is a 6’5 Dutch kickboxer who made his name in Japan,  literally kicking the shit out of all his opponents in K-1, DREAM and PRIDE, occasionally fighting in the Light Heavyweight division rather than Heavyweight, because sometimes life just isn’t fair, and you end up having to fight a terrifying man who’s hugely taller than you and can probably kick you to death. There was a lot of buzz around his signing, with him being considered a great signing for the UFC, being relatively young, yet having a plethora of MMA experience.

So naturally, placing him against another man who’s ploughed through the Heavyweight division in his current company, that man being the Beast Incarnate, BRRRRRRRROCK LLLLLLLLLESNAR!

We start off with the usual touching of gloves, here it’s worth noting that Overeem’s managing to make Lesnar look small, having the height advantage and seemingly having muscles stacked atop his muscles.

Both men doing the usual circling and ranging, with Lesnar feinting a leg kick, which is the most bizarre thing ever to me for some reason. Someone of his density should not be attempting kicks. At all. He tries for another, before Overeem swings for the fences and Bork manages to duck it, backing away again and keeping away from the mass of humanity standing before him.

He then surges forward and throws a few punches, missing in what is like watching someone throw a mammoth at a skyscraper. Lesnar then tries for a single leg, which Overeem wisely escapes, as you don’t really want someone with the amateur wrestling cred of Lesnar taking you down! (I’m told said cred is worth at least half of the same amount in street cred.)

The commentators then point out that Lesnar has somehow managed to cut Overeem above the eye, despite the fact neither man has actually landed a punch. Evidently the force of the aforementioned flurry was so much that it split Overeem’s eyebrow!

Overeem then closes the gap, kneeing Brock square in the stomach. Keep in mind, this is a guy who had a foot of his colon removed not too long ago, so getting kneed by someone who’s renowned for having lethal knees in the gut isn’t a good idea. As a result,  the normally stoic and impossible to hurt Lesnar is stumbled, but still manages to push Overeem back.

It’s all for naught though, as Ubereem can obviously smell blood, and quickly repeats his earlier attempts, adding some punches to the mix as well. Lesnar still stands tall though, channelling his inner Viking and manages to stay standing, even after Overeem kicks him square in the Diverticulitis!

It soon all becomes too much though, as Overeem lands a few more knees, then a searing body kick, to which Lesnar is visibly hurt and falls onto one knee in true warrior fashion, and Overeem lays in with the fists, resulting in a TKO victory.

 

Usually, it’d all be said and done there. However, after failing to take a pre-fight wellness test and having to fight on a temporary license, it transpired in a post-fight test that Overeem had nearly triple the allowed level of testosterone in his body, something commonly associated with various performance enhancing drugs, perhaps being indicative of his, uh, inflated appearance.

He was then  fined and temporarily banned from fighting, as well as losing his shot at Heavyweight belt. Since then, he’s lost 3 out of his last 4 fights, making one wonder if he had faced Lesnar clean and if Lesnar had not been missing a foot of his guts, would he have won so easily, if at all?

And Lesnar? Well, he decided that maybe sticking with MMA wasn’t the best plan, and decided to head back to where it all started. That’s right, Minnesota! Wait, no, I mean WWE! Since then, he’s been booked as an absolute destroyer of worlds, stopping for no man and only being defeated via nefarious methods.

He recently ended The Undertaker’s streak, and if you don’t know what that is, dude, the fuck? It’d basically be like if Liverpool won the premier league/Steelers won the superbowl/Yankees won the world series/Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup/Chicago Bulls won the…whatever they win 21 years in a row with ease, only for (Insert rival team) to stroll in and destroy them in the final of the 22nd year.

It’s that big a deal. He then went on to destroy John Cena, who has been the WWE’s Superman for years on end in a fashion that would make Doomsday proud, winning the WWE Heavyweight Championship and becoming the current big bad of the WWE and making ridiculous amounts of money.

So one has to ask, who really won here?

 

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @TheeAJPowell. I never use the bloody thing, but who knows, I might discover the secret to eternal life, then tweet about it! Wouldn’t you feel silly if you missed that?