MMABay’s Opinion: MMA’s Four Most Unexpected Celebrities of 2010
It’s no surprise that a sport as eclectic as MMA regularly churns out a cast of characters comparable to the latest Tarantino movie. You have your good guys, your bad guys your anti-heroes and all-round oddities. It’s for that reason that MMABay takes time out to salute some of the individuals that caused us to take note this year.
Anthony Pettis: In a sport that produces highlight reel moments seemingly every week, you need to do something pretty special to stand out from the MMA crowd. In recent times, the smaller weight classes of World Extreme Cagefighting have always been a good bet for a flashy KO, a sick submission or a wild fight that is destined to become YouTube fodder forever. However, nothing could have quite prepared us for the conclusion of the last ever round, of the last ever fight, on the last ever card in the promotion’s storied history.
Ben Henderson vs Anthony Pettis was exactly the kind of send-off WEC deserved; two great fighters digging deep and putting it all on the line in the name of a great fight for the fans. Pettis’ decision to launch himself into a springing flying kick off the cage was icing on the cake the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Not only did it do the rounds on the mainstream sports media, it made Pettis an instant legend – a man that many MMA fans had barely heard mention of before the year began became the perpetrator of 2010’s single most stunning moment. With a reported 40+ variations of the ‘Showtime Kick’ (MMAtrix Kick would have been better in this writer’s humble opinion) in his bag, who knows what 2011 will bring for the final WEC champion.
Bloodstain Lane: Ahh, the internet; a place where anyone with a camera and a YouTube account can become a star. The real beauty of the blog/vlog culture though, is that if you sift through the garbage for long enough, you’ll inevitably unearth a diamond in the rough. One such diamond is New Yorker Anthony ‘Bloodstain’ Lane, quite possibly MMA’s most opinionated ‘voice of the people’ and (for a refreshing change) someone who clearly knows his stuff. Declaring war on ‘Zuffa Zombies’ – those who blindly follow the UFC’s version of MMA history, Bloodstain has set out to teach the world that there is more to the sport than Brock Lesnar and Dana White.
Lane is a long time advocate of Japanese, Brazilian, Asian and European fighters from all disciplines, and leads the charge for JMMA and the ‘Anti-Zuffa Brigade’ in his videos, Twitter posts and just about every other kind of social media you can think of. I must admit, I don’t always agree 100% with his opinions – but then the world would be a boring place if there was no debate. One thing that is unquestionable though is Bloodstain’s dedication to his cause, and with that his ability to bring the less-mentioned fighters and promotions of this world to the forefront of the MMA consciousness. So is ‘Bloodstain’ real, or simply a pro-wrestling-inspired creation used by Antony Lane to wind up the masses and raise a little hell? I’d very much like to think that it’s a bit of both. With the online MMA community being what it is, you have to admire a man that unapologetically sticks up for his beliefs, especially when they are more counter-culture than general consensus.
Brock Lesnar: If you’d have told me three years ago that Brock Lesnar would be MMA’s biggest attraction, I’d have smashed a folding chair over your skull while the referee wasn’t looking. Back in January, rumours of life-threatening illnesses left us unsure if the former WWE star would be able to live a normal life, yet by the year’s end Brock is still taking up more column inches than anyone else in the sport. With premature talk of his demise only serving to add fuel to the fire of the promotional wet dream that was his return, Lesnar vs Carwin for the undisputed heavyweight championship became one of the hottest tickets of the year.
Despite taking a hellish beating en route to bringing home the gold, the dramatic nature of Lesnar’s come-from-behind win and his uncanny knack for selling fights set him on course for his second blockbuster bout of the year. This time Cain Velasquez stood opposite the brawling behemoth, and when the dust settled, the Mexican-American had dished out a lesson in violence from which Brock could not return. Still, it was Lesnar who took the headlines, with his post-fight confrontation with WWE’s Undertaker garnering more attention that the crowning of the first Heavyweight Champ of Mexican decent. Even as the year draws to a close and some misguided quotes snowball into whispers of Brock walking away from MMA, the Minnesotan’s name is still on the lips and finger-tips of more fans, journalists and bloggers than any other individual in the sport. He is set for a potential $2,000,000 payday for half an hour’s work at Wrestlemania, followed by a couple more big-bucks fights for the UFC. Not bad for a guy for whom a simple workout could have killed this time last year.
Frankie Edgar: ‘Commendable yet unspectacular’ would have been a good phrase to describe Frankie Edgar’s pre-2010 MMA career. He held early career victories over Tyson Griffin and Jim Miller way back in 06/07, as well as more recent decisions wins against crafty veterans Sean Sherk and Hermes Franca. But coming off a submission victory over the largely unheralded Matt Veach in late 2009, few had him pencilled in as the next in line for a shot at MMA legend BJ Penn’s 155lb title. Indeed, if you go back to when the bout was announced in early 2010, the forums and blogs almost uniformly saw this as a ‘keep busy’ title defence for ‘The Prodigy’; a way for the UFC to send one of their biggest stars to Abu Dhabi to keep the new investors happy, without giving away a blockbuster PPV main event overseas.
Then the impossible happened. Edgar abandoned his wresting (the only gameplan people gave him a shot of even taking a round from Penn with) and boxed with BJ for 25 minutes. Incredibly, he won. Even more incredibly, in the August rematch he did it again. Ahead of the UFC 118 main event, people had already written ‘The Answer’ off, and were making premature plans for a 2011 rubber match. Frankie never got the memo. Edgar was 2010’s ‘Little Engine That Could’; a true underdog that rose from relative obscurity to dethrone a legend and take his place at the top of the lightweight pile. Twelve months ago, the suggestion that 11-1 Frankie Edgar would outclass BJ Penn once, let alone twice, was absurd in nature. What a difference a year makes.
By Brad Wharton
Why not tell us what you think about this story and get your thoughts featured in this week’s Mailbag? Email Mailbag@mmabay.co.uk, start the subject with the word ‘MAILBAG’ and we’ll post our favourites this Friday.
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