Mike Chiappetta • E-mail

LAS VEGAS - On the day that Brock Lesnar’s signing was officially announced by the UFC, the company’s heavyweight division was in disarray.

On that very day in October 2007, UFC 77 was held, and only one heavyweight match was contested. In that bout, ex-champ Tim Sylvia won a lackluster decision over Brandon Vera, a man he outweighed by 50 pounds. Just over a week before, Randy Couture had “resigned,” severing ties despite holding the company’s heavyweight championship. And the next scheduled card didn’t have a single heavyweight matchup to push the division forward. In fact, after Couture defended his title with a win over Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74 in August, there were seven more events before the close of 2007. Out of 64 matches contested over those cards, only four featured heavyweights.

Right away, it became apparent Lesnar would figure in prominently in the heavyweight division. Purists balked.

After years of explaining how technical and skillful mixed martial artists had to be, Lesnar was seen as a threat to the established order. After all, what did it say about the sport if a relative rookie – one that became famous through pro wrestling of all things – could come in and dominate right away?

Wouldn’t it be more fuel to the critics, they argued? Wouldn’t it discount all of the arguments we’ve used to try to establish legitimacy if he could make it to the top so quickly?

After years of being bashed by critics, you can understand why backers of the sport are so jumpy, but the fact of the matter is that every sport has its phenoms, and after Saturday night, it’s OK to put Lesnar in that category.

After all, nobody says basketball is a joke when a stud like LeBron James enters the league out of high school and immediately begins embarrassing veterans on a nightly basis. Nobody has objected to Atlanta Falcons’ rookie quarterback Matt Ryan’s Pro Bowl-caliber season.

Of course, people might say it’s not a true parallel, as James and Ryan have been playing their respective sports their whole lives, while Lesnar’s only real training came in his amateur wrestling background, but let’s face it: any game at the highest level is a whole different game.

Excelling at high school basketball doesn’t always correspond to success in the pros, let alone superstardom (DaJuan Wagner anyone?). And being a star collegiate quarterback usually means either a spot on the bench or horrifying growing pains for a rookie (there’s an endless list). There are simply exceptions to every rule, and Lesnar, like James and Ryan, is one of them.

On Saturday night, we found out a few things about him that we did not previously know. Couture tested him for a full five-minute round. His takedowns were stopped. His punches were ducked. He was hit. He bled.

Lesnar passed every test.

I was cageside when Couture fought Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 74. The young challenger had done well for a portion of the match. He had rocked Couture a couple times and bulled him around a bit. He was a force, and it looked like Couture was in for a fight. But you could essentially feel Gonzaga surrender after having his nose broken. He couldn’t breathe freely, and his will to win was shattered. 

Lesnar on Saturday tasted his own blood for the first time. Couture cut him over the eye with a hook, but it didn’t stop him.

“Right away, it made me nervous, but then it pissed me off,” he said. “I wanted to get first blood on Randy, you always want to get first blood on your opponent. But something went off in my mind. I said to myself, ‘We gotta pick this up.’”

Lesnar compiled a 106-5 record in college and won an NCAA championship. And even though he went through a few years of pro wrestling, he never lost the competitive drive. He always thought himself capable of being a professional athlete, and despite making millions of dollars as a star in the scripted world of WWE, he gave it all up.

Lesnar could have started in smaller organizations and gotten a few matches under his belt before swimming with the big fish, but from the get-go, he told UFC President Dana White, “I’m either going to be good at this, or I’m not. Let’s find out.”

Turns out he was right.

In a sport that needs superstars to survive, Lesnar is almost a prayer answered from the heavens. He brings a built-in brand name to millions. He is brash and confident. He physically looks like the embodiment of the baddest many on the planet. In short, he’s a marketing dream.

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