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Brock Lesnar’s mouthpiece, Paul Heyman, explains what motivates the UFC Heavyweight champion to be the very best
By Zach Arnold | July 4, 2010
If Paul Heyman is positioning himself as MMA’s first pro-wrestling style manager, then he did a damn good job of it this week in the media. I’ve seen several media interviews that he has done and he has been absolutely electric in each one. The way he works the media over and the way he gets his point across without trashing Brock’s opponents but rather by building them up is the kind of thing you don’t often see done so well from top MMA personalities.
The transcript is a must read.
One of the interesting items that Dave Meltzer relayed on his show late last night was how the perception of the UFC fans towards Brock Lesnar is changing. The idea that he was viewed as the outsider that was invading the company and making a mockery of the sport to now being the champion who is a legitimate, terrorizing monster, therefore being not as disliked as he was in the past.
PAUL HEYMAN: “I’m crying, man, I mean, you know, my best friend just got off his, he was on his deathbed nine months ago and he… I thought it was over in the first round and I think Josh Rosenthal deserves just a ton of credit for good officiating because you know he asked Brock once, you know, do you want to stop, and he asked him a second time, Brock says no I’m not stopping. Brock kept moving and you know if it was Steve Mazzagatti the fight would have been stopped, you know, and it wasn’t stopped. It was good officiating and then Brock showed WHO HE IS, you know, and he showed who he has evolved into being as a Mixed Martial Artist and you know it has everything that he says, believe me, is understated because he’s not going to give you all of his emotion and… he’s come back from his deathbed and his wife is pregnant and they’re going to have a baby in two weeks, so imagine how he’s feeling right now and that first round was the scariest moment of my life and you know and he comes back and he chokes Carwin out. I mean, my God. I couldn’t be more proud of my friend than if I was doing it myself, and I’m not man enough to do it myself so I’m sure glad it was him doing it!”
DANNY ACOSTA: “And having gone through that experience with Brock, with him being on his deathbed, when you were watching him in trouble in the cage, did you know there’s no way that he will quit?”
PAUL HEYMAN: “Oh, he wasn’t going quit! Oh, no, no! I mean, I thought he could have been pounded into unconsciousness, but he wasn’t tapping. There was no way that he was going to tap and there was no way that he was going to make it easy for Carwin to knock him into unconsciousness. He was going to keep fighting and keep fighting until Carwin knocked him into unconsciousness and Carwin was going to have to blast through Brock’s defense to get him into unconsciousness.
Listen, you know, they said he doesn’t have a chin. Those people can shut the [expletive] now. They said he can’t take punishment. Those people can shut the [expletive] up now. He took the best that Carwin out and THEN HE CHOKE HIM OUT. And I’ll give Carwin, MY GOD, I mean you talk about credit, he held his own wrestling Brock. I mean, he was out striking in the first round. I mean, Carwin, MY GOD, what an animal and I look forward to seeing his next fight but not quite as much as I look seeing to Brock Lesnar’s next fight.”
DANNY ACOSTA: “Can you tell us about what it was like last night? Brock mentioned, here at the post-fight press conference, you guys watched his last match with Bill Goldberg and the other side of Brock Lesnar, you know the guy who just hangs out and you know isn’t that stern figure that we all figure.”
PAUL HEYMAN: “Oh, no, no, he’s that stern figure but he’s a… he’s everything that you see inside that cage and he is a drive, focused, obsessive athlete and he wants to be the best in the world. His motivation for being the best in the world is to feed his family, it’s not ego-driven because now he goes home and now he becomes a husband and a father and he’s not going to be sitting there and watching himself in all his glory because his glory is going to be to play with his son Turk and to watch his wife give birth to his new son in a couple of weeks. So, what was it like last night? We just keep it real loose around him. I mean, when you’re somebody’s friend and I learned this from my friends, the best way to be someone’s friend to say, listen, if you need me to just get out of your way, I’m out of your way. You want me to be with you, I’m with you, you know, I’ll give you as much space as you want and I’ll be here as close as you want me to be and he just wanted to be surrounded by people who cared about him and he cared about and Bill Goldberg came over with WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL wife Wanda and we all had dinner and you know the whole team was there and we just watched some TV and you know kept it real loose and then he just did some stretching and went to bed. You know, it’s been that whole way this week. What he did this week more than any other week was that he paced his energy, you know, you’re usually a couple of days before the fight I’ll talk to him on the phone and he’ll be like, YEEEEEEAAAAH HHHHHHHOW YOU DOING?!?! you know and this week he was loose up until about, uh, about 10 minutes before we got to the arena when we hit traffic and you know you started to hear him clear his throat, he’s ready to clear his throat, and you know, OK, it’s kicking in? YEEEAH, YOU KNOW, HOPE THEY GET OUT OF OUR WAY SOON! OK, you know… but that’s him as an athlete, you know, he’s a game day player and more so than any other time in his life this week he was a game day player.”
DANNY ACOSTA: “Brock Lesnar versus Cain Velasquez is the next fight for Brock. Give us your thoughts.”
PAUL HEYMAN: “My thoughts are Cain Velasquez is a different type of fighter than Shane Carwin. I mean, he is every bit the wrestler that anybody else in the UFC is. And he’s an interesting, he’s a very interesting guy. He brings a different dynamic to the Octagon. And so Brock’s training will be different for Cain Velasquez than it was for Shane Carwin. You know, Shane Carwin looked to me like he was 280 pounds. And obviously the strategy behind that was for him to not get muscled around by Brock and to push Brock up against the cage and I’ll give Shane Carwin and his team all the credit in the world. That’s exactly what they did! He defended himself well against Brock in the first round and he was going with Brock muscle-for-muscle and he got him up against the cage and I mean, you got to give him all the credit in the world for that. You have to give Brock all the credit in the world for surviving it and coming back and choking him out. Velaquez is different. Velasquez is much faster than Shane Carwin and he’s a much more dangerous wrestler in certain ways than Shane Carwin and his defense is different than Shane Carwin, so… I think the thing that has happened here with Brock is that he has the best team in the world. Marty Morgan is the best coach. As much as you know you talk about in football, it would be Bill Parcells or you know all the legendary coaches in baseball, yeah yeah, you know. I think Marty’s there because Marty has taken his NCAA Heavyweight champion and that’s his star athlete and he’s a head coach. Comprido… I mean, where do you think that choke came from? It came from Comprido. Where do you think the half-crucifix against Frank Mir came from? It came from Comprido. Peter Welch has made all the difference in the world. I mean, Peter Welch has just, you know, added speed and a stance and everything else to Brock’s game. And you know there are so many members of that team and they all deserve just a ton of credit because each one of them plays a pivotal part and that’s also a lot of credit to Brock because he put together, I mean he spends more money on his team than any fighter in the world and there’s no boxer that has this many people around him. He has a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach. he has a strength & conditioning coach. He has a boxing coach in Peter Welch. He has Marty running the whole show. I mean, my God, I mean how many people does this guy have on payroll, you know?”
DANNY ACOSTA: “Any last word for fans?”
PAUL HEYMAN: “Which fans are we talking about? Are we talking about wrestling fans or are we talking about UFC fans? Well, it seems all the wrestling fans are coming over to the UFC, so and with Brock Lesnar here, who can really blame them?”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I’m wondering if Heyman is Vince McMahon’s point man on getting involving in UFC. I never liked Heyman as a manager from his earliest days in pro wrestling, and I never cared much for ECW. Still, he’s a smart guy and knows how to talk the talk.
For those who had started calling UFC “WWUFC,” we might just be seeing the start of it.
I’m surprised none of the wrestling guys are talking more about how Brock was positioning himself for a ‘babyface turn’ since he started doing promo for this fight. My thought is he might have realized he needed the fan good will if he wanted to keep making money after a loss.
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Why are the comments closed on Kobayshi? He is the Sakuraba of eating imo.
***UPDATE***
Kobayshi arrested!!!!
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2010/07/kobayashi-arrested-after-joey-chestnut-hot-dog-win/1
Heyman and all the wrestling crew that showed up proved that their mic skills are far superior to just about any talent the ufc has.
I used to be a huge hardcore wrestling nerd, and now I no longer watch the stuff. MMA is where it’s at now, and Zuffa has their shit together. I do wish they had a flashier production style ala Dream, and would fold the WEC into the UFC, but Zuffa still are easily the best promoters in all of combat sports, real or fake. They put on great shows (not that they don’t have misfires but still), they have a very deep roster, disciplined booking, know how to make me care about undercard talent, and know how to build stars.
Wrestling, on the other hand, is just kind of broken right now.
The wrestling people that attended UFC 116 that I saw were Steve Austin, “Dwayne The Rock” Johnson, Bill Goldberg, Jim Ross, and Paul Heyman. Right there you have arguably the three biggest stars of the last boom period; the most famous color commentator of the last 20 years who was also the most competent talent-relations General Manager; and the smartest, most influential booker of the last 20 years in Paul Heyman. And only Ross is even slightly still involved in wrestling, and not in either of the roles that made him great. They’ve just all moved on to other things, and as much as I enjoyed these guys in the wrestling business, I don’t blame them one bit.
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