On the night before the biggest football game of the year, Super Bowl XLII, Ultimate Fighting Championship^® (UFC^®) organization takes center stage with an immense night of hard-hitting heavyweight fight action.  At UFC 81, former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir will put former WWE Champion and world-renowned superstar Brock Lesnar to the ultimate test, as Lesnar makes his move from the squared circle into the Octagon^™ to prove that he is for real.  UFC fans will also witness the crowning of a new King of the Heavyweights when two-time champion Tim “The Maine-iac” Sylvia battles former PRIDE^® champion Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira for the Interim UFC Heavyweight Championship of the world in the main event of UFC 81: BREAKING POINT taking place live from Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Feb. 2, 2008.

Surprisingly, much of the attention being focused on Brock Lesnar at this conference seems to be in regard to his pro wrestling career, despite his success as an amateur wrestler. And his added experience as a pro wrestler is being disregarded or disdained even though some of PRIDE’s most successful fighters, such as Kazushi Sakuraba, have come from pro wrestling and added techniques not seen before in MMA.

“I’m tagged as this professional wrestler. People tend to forget that I was an amateur wrestler for 18 years and competed at a high level… This is my road to hopefully become the UFC heavyweight champion. Also, I’m confident in my trainers and my training partners, and we’re going to go out there and try to win this fight,” says Brock.

“Competition is in my blood, and I’ve done it for a number of years, whether it was on a wrestling mat or whether it’s in a ring or Octagon. It’s going to be no different when the door closes on the Octagon: “It’s going to be me and one other man out there, and I’ve been in those positions before, so I’m going to be very comfortable.

“In this sport I have to be well rounded, and so my wrestling kinda had to take a backseat, because it’s one of those things that I’m very good at, and so I wanted to become very comfortable with my striking game and on the ground as well. That’s what we’ve been focusing on – my hands and the ground game,” says Brock.

Regarding predictions for his clash with Frank Mir, Brock is non-committal. “I don’t know how it’s going to go down. Hopefully, we’re going to go in there and go after each other. I’m not going out there to make anybody happy other than myself and try to do the best that I can do.”

Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir concedes Lesnar will have the strength and size advantage, but says he plans to overcome this by not being stationary. “Obviously Brock is stronger than I am. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. He’s stronger than just about anybody you could compete against. So if I just lay there then I’m going to get crushed, but if I keep in constant motion, moving around and using speed…

“The same thing when a little guy fights a big guy in the gym, he has to use motion and movement, move around and keep the fight moving. If you stand still, all that weight is going to bear down on you; you give someone leverage to grab onto something and just rip and smash you,” says Mir.

Unfortunately, Tim Sylvia’s phone drops out during the conference, so some questions prepared for Tim are not answered, but he says he is not particularly concerned whether he is fighting for the UFC Heavyweight or Interim Heavyweight Title whilst Randy Couture’s court case with the UFC is still unresolved. 

Tim Sylvia

“I’m happy that I’ll get to fight Nogueira. I’ve been watching him for a long time: He’s a great fighter and he’s been through a lot of things, but the whole dispute between PRIDE and UFC – they’re always saying that PRIDE athletes are better, and lately we haven’t seen that. And Nogueira currently is ranked a little higher than I am, and I truly believe I can go out there and beat him. 

“The light at the end of the tunnel is that it’s for another title… If everything goes right, I’ll be the champ again, and whatever they decide to do, I’ll just keep fighting. I’m happy to get another fight and hopefully it’s someone I can look forward to fighting. As Frank said earlier, I think everyone knows I want to fight him real bad, so I’m calling for Frank because we have some unfinished business,” says Sylvia.

However, Tim is taking one fight at a time and he’s not taking Antonio Nogueira lightly. “I actually believe he’s the best heavyweight jiu jitsu fighter in the world today. I mean his being the PRIDE former heavyweight champion and all - he’s a stud. I’ve been watching him for a long time: I was watching Nogueira when I wasn’t even fighting – I was just training. And when I started fighting, I was watching him and I thought ‘I’d like to fight that guy some day. He’s really, really good.’ 

“I truly believe he’s somebody I can go out there and beat and it moves me up in the rankings. And maybe someday, if everything goes right and I beat Nogueira, we can get Fedor (Emelianko) to sign a fight and we’ll get to shut the world up after that,” says Sylvia.

Brock is asked if he has any ‘UFC jitters.’ For which he replies, “No, I don’t. Obviously there are some nerves involved and I can’t really pinpoint them. I guess it’s just the mere fact that when competing in anything, if you don’t have any nerves, then you’re not really into it. It’s nothing different to what I’ve felt before, so I’m feeling really good.

“As a pro wrestler in Australia I competed in front of 72,000 people, and as a pro wrestler I prepared for every match and had to get pumped up. I approached it the same as I did for amateur wrestling. And a lot of the guys I worked with didn’t like working with me because I was a little too rough for them. Even in college, at the national tournaments, there were 22,000 people there, so I’m no stranger to competing in front of crowds,” says Brock.

Lesnar agrees he does have a lot to prove – both to the MMA fans and to his MMA opponents – but makes one thing clear, “I’m not going to talk about WWE. I’m here for the UFC. Thank you very much.”

For Frank’s fight preparation he brought in wrestlers with a background in college wrestling, and he worked with heavier guys so they could similate what he expects Lesnar to bring to the table. “I had Tommy Rollins from Ohio come down and a couple of different guys from Oklahoma to see what it was like. And then I also sparred with guys who are MMA fighters now, and have a real strong wrestling background, but have added on the kickboxing and jiu jitsu aspects of the game, just to understand what are the tendencies here, and what does it feel like to have a guy who’s 280 and powerful, and tries to hold you down, cross-eyed, and tries to elbow the hell out of you. How am I going to deal with this? What techniques are better for leverage and whatnot to use?” says Mir.

Frank Mir

Tim Sylvia confirms he will be paying close attention to the Mir vs. Lesnar match because the winner will most likely get a title shot, down the road, and Tim says he intends becoming the champion again, so he’s keen to check out his potential competition. Sylvia also states he does not resent the attention Brock is getting, leading up to making his UFC debut.

“Brock’s done a lot in WWE and he’s got a big name, so I think they’re kinda exposing this as, ‘Is the wrestler going to beat the fighter?’ They’re trying to hype it up that way so I understand the whole philosophy of his getting all the exposure – I think they’re hoping and praying to get him beat. I think that’s why he’s getting all the exposure that he’s getting,” says Sylvia.

Brock shrugs off the suggestion that putting Frank on the ground could be to his detriment. “I’m not going to pull any punches. I’m going to go out there and try to have a fast-paced fight and to try to initiate some damage early, so we’re coming to Las Vegas to win this fight.”

Tim Sylvia is asked if his goal is to keep the fight against Nogueira away from the ground. “I think my goal is always to keep it away from the ground, every fight I’m in. Anyone knows me… I like to stand and bang and I try to go out there and knock people out, so it’s always that way.

“I don’t know of anyone who has ever finished him (Nogueira)… The longest he’s gone is 20 minutes and he’s shown wear and tear in those 20 minutes – he tends to gas. I’m preparing to go 25 minutes like I always do. Do I want it to go 25 minutes? No. I only want it to go about 30 seconds, but you never know.”

Brock seems equally confident of his abilities if his battle with Frank remains standing. “I’ve got a lot of confidence with my striking capabilities so obviously I’m going to go out there any way feasible to win this fight. We’ve been training and we’ve got a game plan put together, and if things go awry I’ll resort to my amateur wrestling. We’ll just have to see what happens.”

Regarding the stringent levels of strength and conditioning required to be a professional wrestler, Brock elaborates, “It wasn’t easy making the transition from an amateur wrestler to a pro wrestler. There’s a lot of training involved, and getting in that ring, I worked 300 nights a year in a different city every night for four straight years. And before that I was in Louisville, Kentucky, for a year learning how to become a pro wrestler. There was a lot of training, but nothing compared to what I’m doing now.”

JEREMY HORN vs. NATE MARQUARDT

RICARDO ALMEIDA vs. ALAN BELCHER

GLEISON TIBAU vs. TYSON GRIFFIN

KYLE BRADLEY vs. CHRIS LYTLE

TIM BOETSCH vs. DAVID HEATH

MARVIN EASTMAN vs. TERRY MARTIN

KEITA NAKAMURA vs. ROBERT EMERSON

LIVE FROM MANDALAY BAY, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2008

For a review of UFC 81, stay tuned to www.knucklepit.com.