WWE color commentator Jim Ross wrote about Brock and Mir in his latest blog (credit: jrsbarbq.com):
"Frank Mir successfully pisses off everyone within ear shot in his WWE-like hype to sell PPV's for his fight with Brock Lesnar this Saturday at UFC 100. The more MIr knocks pro wrestling the more he sounds like a wrestling villain even though it's Lesnar who will be booed out of Vegas Saturday evening. Miz was allegedly at 249 pounds Monday while Lesnar is 30 pounds heavier. Lesnar is a gnarly animal who is ready to consume ample quantities of red meat and Saturday can't come soon enough for the former WWE Champion who just had a son with wife Sable/Rena. To the Lesnar's, congrats on that and best of luck Sunday. I just hope Brock doesn't get over anxious and make a silly mistake. If Brock stays under control and smart he will beat Mir like a government mule."
For all canadian Brock-fans: MMA Connected presented by Ultimatebet.net gets you ready for UFC 100 with a special episode Monday, July 6 on Sportsnet East and Sportsnet Ontario at 11:30 p.m. (ET), Sportsnet West at 12:00 a.m. (MT) and Sportsnet Pacific at 12:00 a.m. (PT). The show will also include a feature on the MMA career of Brock Lesnar as he gets ready for his heavyweight unification bout with Frank Mir. Lesnar's only loss occurred the last time he met Mir in the octagon at UFC 81. Ferraro will analyze why Mir was able to upset Lesnar in that match in a segment called “The Beginning of the End”. He will pinpoint the one wrong move that Lesnar made that ended up costing him the victory. MMA Connected also checks in with fighters Sean “The Muscle Shark” Sherk, Rashad “Suga” Evans, Jon Fitch, James “The Sandman” Irvin and Gina “Conviction” Carano for their predictions on who will win the Lesnar-Mir fight.
Brock's trainer Greg Nelson was interviewed by mmajunkie.com/radio. Here are the highlights concerning Brock:
As the UFC's current heavyweight champion, Lesnar is currently Minnesota Martial Arts Academy's highest-profile fighter. And with a UFC 100 bout with Frank Mir set for July 11, Nelson said Lesnar is better than ever. "We've had a really good training camp, a lot of guys in there," Nelson said. "This has been an extremely good camp because we've had a lot of guys that are big and can move. We brought in a guy from Arizona who was an all-armed forces boxing champion who is 300 pounds and can hit like a Mac truck." In addition to increased focus on his striking skills, Nelson said Lesnar has matured in the course of his short career. "Brock is a very smart fighter," Nelson said. "Since his first fight, he went in there and that was more just pure get-in-there, raw aggression, try to run them over like a truck. You could see from that fight to Heath Herring to then with Randy Couture, you see a steady growth in his striking development and ability to pace himself – control to not be so anxious in the ring. "He's got the ability to really run through you like a freight train, ... but at the same time he now has a lot more movement." Should Lesnar avenge his February 2008 loss to Mir and walk away with the UFC's unified heavyweight title, perhaps a little bit more attention will be paid to the Minnesota academy. And while Nelson doesn't mind remaining in the background, he has no problem predicting the potential success of his current star. "[Lesnar's] ground game has been seriously upgraded with the people we brought in, and he always, always, always is a threat with those hands because they are so big and he's so fast," Nelson said. "It's just physics at that point. There's going to be a lot of force coming down on Frank."
He's a very big man. You were well aware of this, of course. But standing next to Brock Lesnar gives a true sense of just how big her really is. His 280 pounds are filled to the brim with hard-earned muscle, the kind that typically only starts to develop on farms in the Midwest where he grew up. Lesnar's strength is certainly his most visible asset. He's far and away the most powerful man in mixed martial arts. Heavyweight champions have never looked like him. They looked like Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko, who's widely considered the best fighter in the world: Men who are bigger than your average civilian, but not overwhelmingly so. Couture is 6-foot-2, 220 pounds; Emelianenko 6-foot, 230. Lesnar, on the other hand, is so massive that it nearly borders on comical. But, it's not just his size and strength that's overwhelming. Lesnar, an NCAA wrestling champion in 2000, is as quick as some of MMA's top light heavyweights. He can pummel an opponent or just dominate him on the canvas. Heading into next Saturday's title unification bout at UFC 100 versus Frank Mir, Lesnar is considered the prototype for the new heavyweight, just as Georges St. Pierre is thought to be the new mold for lighter fighters. Lesnar's the reason some pundits are clamoring for a cruiserweight division, a place for people who would typically be considered a heavyweight but don't even come close Lesnar's size. He may weigh in at the UFC heavyweight limit of 265 pounds, but on fight night, he's 280 again and dominant. They don't want to see a repeat of the night when Lesnar, 31, faced aging heavyweight champ Randy Couture last fall. Lesnar stopped him in the first round. This was a little more than a year after his first MMA match. Lesnar's physical gifts are off the charts, but they're rivaled by his ability to learn new skills. He chose World Wrestling Entertainment after college because there was little money in mixed martial arts. Fighters were bruised and battered for a pittance, and that didn't sound appealing in the least. He quickly became known as the best big-man performer in pro wrestling and in 2003 even main evented the biggest show in the business — WrestleMania. The pro wrestling lifestyle eventually became too much, and Lesnar chose to leave. He's a family man at heart, raised in the kind of throwback-farm atmosphere where family is the most important thing in the world. Working for the WWE meant spending 300 days a year away from his wife, and that wasn't going to work out very well for an overgrown kid who loves home more than anything in the world. Lesnar attempted to play pro football next. He hadn't played organized team sports since high school, but that didn't stop him. He nearly made the Minnesota Vikings as a backup, being one of the last players cut before training camp ended. Scott Sudwell, director of college scouting for the Vikings, came away impressed by Lesnar's work ethic. "He is talented," Studwell said. "He is a good athlete. He has a history of achievement. And you know he has a work ethic." That work ethic enabled Lesnar to quickly grasp and excel in MMA. He made a crucial mistake against Mir in his first UFC bout last year. Lesnar got anxious and recklessly went for the finish. Mir made him pay for that mistake, forcing him to tap out. But Lesnar learned a great deal from that bout. He was reserved, calm and controlling against both Heath Herring and Couture, later that same year. The most recent word out of Lesnar's camp is that he's nearly impossible to submit, and he's "basically a brown belt in jiujitsu defense." He's spent countless hours training submission defense. Mir will weigh 255 pounds come fight night, but could be outweighed by 30 pounds when they enter the octagon. And there are plenty of guys like Lesnar coming up the ranks; guys who are strong, fast, agile and skilled. There may very well come a day where all heavyweights are guys like Brock Lesnar, and smaller fighters like Randy Couture are nothing more than a memory in the division.