AMADI: Brock Lesnar's UFC drawing power a remarkably unclear anomaly

By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

With all the mid-year discussion being had, it was inevitable that people would pick up on the fact that a number of UFC events this year have underperformed and that those people would decide that MMA has "peaked" (again) as a result of the absence of Brock Lesnar. But it wasn't until I read the "UFC Post-Peak" piece up on BloodyElbow.com that I realized exactly how unique a figure Brock Lesnar really is.

As far as low pay-per-view buys are concerned, the UFC doing low numbers with events headlined by Gray Maynard, Jon Fitch, and Matt Hamill shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, no matter how you try to spin it. To suggest the end is near for the UFC because Jon Fitch doesn't capture the imagination of casual fans (or most hardcore fans for that matter) is absurd. If anything, 2011 has proven to be a great building year for the UFC.

The two pound-for-pound best fighters in the sport have drawn more than they ever have this year. The last time I checked, Anderson Silva's title defense at UFC 126 did a healthy 725,000 pay-per-view buys and Georges St. Pierre pulled an even more impressive 800,000 pay-per-view buys with his title defense at UFC 129.

What should be a particularly good sign for the UFC is that they have a new crop of marketable fighters to groom and promote aside from the big three (Silva, St. Pierre, and Lesnar) going forward. The aura surrounding UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones, a potential grudge match between Jones and Rashad Evans, Frank Edgar and Gray Maynard turning in a surprise fight of the year candidate, how well the UFC Bantamweight Title fight was received, and the highly anticipated heavyweight showdown between Junior Dos Santos and Cain Valasquez all portend to great things and big business in the future.

However, the idea that the UFC is somehow lost without Brock Lesnar is of particular interest to me, seeing as how Lesnar's drawing power is a complete anomaly as far as sports and entertainment go. As much as the media loves to act as if Brock Lesnar had some sort of long and storied tenure in the public eye before hitting the Octagon, that quite frankly is demonstrably untrue.

After Lesnar's collegiate wrestling career, Brock Lesnar signed a development deal with World Wrestling Entertainment, and at that time, Lesnar was still completely unknown. Brock Lesnar still had yet to make it onto national television and was still making his way through the WWE's (at that time) developmental territory in Ohio Valley Wrestling. However, fortunately for Lesnar, his reputation as a natural talent and freak athlete had preceded him. Before Lesnar was seen by a national audience, hardcore wrestling fans were already buzzing about his talents and uncanny ability to execute a Shooting Star Press from turnbuckle to turnbuckle at 295 pounds.

When Lesnar finally debuted the night after WrestleMania 18, the WWE audience was already cut in half from what it was just a few years prior. At the time, known commodities like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin were in reduced roles if ever actually on television. Rather than relying on other established talents the WWE was so sure that Lesnar would catch on, they pushed him to the moon, making him the youngest WWE champion in history (at the time) at 25 years old.

When people talk about Brock Lesnar being this huge WWE superstar to crossover into MMA, they often neglect to mention the fact that Lesnar's presence on WWE television only lasted two years, and ratings wise, that was a fairly dark period for the WWE. Brock Lesnar wasn?t some sort of sharp tongued promo man, nor did he have the serious crossover appeal of The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, or even John Cena. The only real national attention Lesnar received was for his failed attempt at entry into the NFL in 2004.

As a matter of fact, when Brock Lesnar made his debut in the UFC in 2008, he'd already spent far more time outside of the WWE than he did in it. Yet when Lesnar debuted, he still grabbed everyone's attention with his abilities in the Octagon, and made people wonder how far he could go in what would be his third attempt at a different athletic endeavor in under a decade.

In the UFC Brock Lesnar has been able to draw more pay-per-view buys than any other fighter in the history of that organization. It should also be noted that the numbers Lesnar draws in the UFC are significantly higher than the one WrestleMania event that he headlined in 2003, which did much lower buys than other WrestleMania events of that time.

Most even seem to have a tenuous grasp on who Brock Lesnar is as a person. After his infamous UFC 100 post-fight antics, the media vilified Lesnar and talked him up as some sort of boogeyman who snaps in and out of some sort of over the top "WWE persona" to sell fights. However, as we saw on the Ultimate Fighter, Brock Lesnar doesn't seem to be that way at all. In fact, the 13th season on the Ultimate fighter was so boring due to Lesnar's paling around with his opposing coach Junior dos Santos, that you could make the argument that Chael Sonnen or even Josh Koscheck have stronger grasps on how to channel their inner-pro wrestler and sell fights to fight fans than Lesnar does.

What's truly remarkable about the career of Brock Lesnar is that, despite how much people like to make up about who he is and why he's able galvanize fight fans the way he does, the fact is that there isn't much in the way of clarity on that subject at all.

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