A villain of blood and theater
It’s a simple formula. UFC brutality + WWE Theatrics = The Next Great Sports Villain of the Decade.
Brock Lesnar is a monster. He is a monster because he has fists the size of toolboxes and a body the size of an industrial fridge. He loves the violence. He is a behemoth. A juggernaut. Mixed Martial Arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship made him that way.
Brock Lesnar is a villain. He is a villain because he taunts his fallen opponents and flips his middle finger to ringside fans. He loves the animosity. He is a heel. A degenerate. Professional wrestling and the WWE made him that way.
Last Friday, I was able to watch the WWE — Lesnar’s birthplace as a professional fighter — live at the Araneta Center. A few days later, I caught UFC 100 Brock Lesnar’s thrashing of challenger Frank Mir. Comparing the two events, one can’t help but be amazed how Lesnar perfectly fuses what makes the WWE and UFC so separately entertaining. The WWE is about sports-entertainment. Athletic theater. It’s a plot-driven display of speed, strength and charisma. The UFC is about martial arts. Ultimate fighting. It’s about competition and skill and technique. Brock Lesnar is the Frankenstein, a monstrosity of physical dominance and a polarizing personality.
The best thing about the WWE is the atmosphere it creates. Last Friday, as Chris Jericho’s “Break the Walls Down” theme music hit, the Araneta crowd popped louder than I’ve heard at any Ateneo-La Salle game. The Dome was in unison chanting “Y2J! Y2J!” And then Chris Jericho (in character) grabbed the microphone. He made a speech about how the crowd was composed of failures and hypocrites. He called himself the only success the Filipinos will ever see in their lives. He called Manila a jungle. Then boos rained down and the crowd was in a frenzy. With Chris Jericho’s speech, the atmosphere went from completely for him, to completely against him. This set up the rousing ovation for his opponent for the night, Rey Mysterio. The WWE knows how to create its villains. And WWE’s villains play the part extremely well.
There are very few villains in the UFC and certainly none as polarizing as those in the WWE. The thrust of the UFC has always been that it’s about the competition, not the circus. In Ultimate Fighting, the best fighters are the one most celebrated, like Georges St Pierre, Lyoto Machida and Randy Couture. Although a good rivalry and some trash talk helps sell tickets (see: Shamrock-Ortiz, Hughes-Serra and Lesnar-Mir), a good fight is always what makes UFC different from pro wrestling. In UFC 98, when challenger Lyoto Machida faced Rashad Evans for the UFC Light Heavyweight title, there was no real hero or villain. There was no real bad blood. These two weren’t the most compelling personalities in the world. Their title fight, however, was a classic. Lyoto Machida and his Brazilian Jiu-jitsu knocked out the boxer/wrestler Evans to capture the UFC Light Heavyweight title.
At UFC 100, we saw the evolution of what could happen when someone exposed to both the worlds of pro wrestling and ultimate fighting is unleashed into the octagon. Brock Lesnar didn’t just showcase his athleticism and skill by making quick work of Frank Mir through a quick takedown and a flurry of punches — he made great theater of it. As Mir was lying there looking like a train wreck, Lesnar taunted Mir while he was down, much to the chagrin of the crowd and UFC head honcho Dana White. Lesnar then proceeded to introduce his two middle fingers to the audience, insult a major sponsor (“I’m going to drink Coors light. That’s a Coors Light because Bud Light won’t pay me nothing.”), and make lewd comments about his post-match plans with his wife.
It was brutality and drama, skill and showmanship, blood and theater, all rolled into one destructive package. Brock Lesnar has become the ultimate villain. To fans of either/or the WWE and UFC, be excited. For everybody else, beware. This is going to get nasty.
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For questions, comments or corrections, please e-mail me at carlfrancisramirez@gmail.com.
