His last mixed martial arts fight was in 2011, but it didn’t look like almost five years had passed for Brock Lesnar inside the octagon on Saturday night. With a strong ground game and the ability to get UFC heavyweight Mark Hunt off his feet and keep himself in an advantageous position, Lesnar won via unanimous decision at the biggest UFC event ever at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The guy they call The Super Samoan has been called one of the best strikers in MMA history, but he wasn’t able to strike Lesnar enough to make an impact and make it a close decision.
In the first round, Lesnar and Hunt started off slowly as they both looked like they didn’t want to make the first mistake. Lesnar was able to take Hunt down a couple of times late in the round but Hunt was able to survive until the bell rung.
The second round belonged to Hunt as he controlled most of the action with a few punches and beautiful defenses against takedown attempts by Lesnar. After the second round, mostly everyone had the score tied at one round apiece.
But the third round was all Lesnar, as he was able to take Hunt down early and never let him up. Lesnar remained on top of Hunt and battered him with punches, though Hunt fought back and never wavered. He cut Lesnar’s ear with a punch and left him with another nice cut next to his left eye, but none of his other elbow attempts or punches had much of an effect.
The fight was awarded to Lesnar based on unanimous decision of 29-27 scores across the board.
After the fight, Lesnar – who was representing Canada Saturday night as he recently moved to the province of Saskatchewan – called on America to come together after the recent incidents in Dallas, Falcon Heights, Minn. And Baton Rouge, La.
“America, shoutout to all the men and women who protect this country,” Lesnar said after the fight. “From sea to shining sea. From one white boy to all nationalities. We need to stand together, people.”
There was a lot of promotion for WWE throughout the night, including two ads for WWE 2K17, the upcoming video game that will be available on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, XBOX 360, XBOX One and Windows. UFC also aired a promo for SummerSlam and mentioned Randy Orton as Lesnar’s opponent for the August WWE pay-per-view in Brooklyn.
There were also various current and former WWE superstars, along with some random celebrities, who congratulated Lesnar on his win.
And Lesnar wasn’t afraid to mince words.
Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of Lesnar inside the octagon.
Here’s the rundown of the rest of the card:
• UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship: Amanda Nunes d. Miesha Tate (c) via submission at 3:16 of the first round to become the new UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion.
• Light Heavyweight Bout: Daniel Cormier d. Anderson Silva by unanimous decision.
• UFC Interim Featherweight Championship: José Aldo d. Frankie Edgar by unanimous decision to become the new UFC Interim Featherweight Champion.
• Heavyweight Bout: Cain Velasquez d. Travis Browne by TKO at 4:57 of the first round.
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