When I leisurely awoke from my slumber this morning I went through my traditional routine.
Slowly get up without waking girlfriend, dress quietly and stalk off to living room, find laptop and muse about which coffee shop to walk to.
Once that’s sorted I open my laptop and weigh into the debate with other Roarers on the new Wallabies coach and the chances at the next World Cup.
Routine went out the window as I started giggling like a two-year-old at a Peppa Pig concert. Roarers take note. The UFC heavyweight title fight in three weeks’ time has had a late replacement. That replacement is Mark Hunt.
Michael Cheika is coach and Kurtley Beale is still touring. That alone has had me considering going back to church, but this latest news has me wanting to start my own.
I have often dreamed what it would be like if Mark Hunt actually got a heavyweight title shot. It was sort of akin to wondering what would happen if Muhammad Ali fought Mike Tyson or if Peter Cosgrove took over from Tony Abbott – great idea but essentially not possible.
Not that Hunt is not capable of fighting for the title. Far from it. The ‘Super Samoan’ may very well have the hardest punch and strongest chin in the fight game. He is a threat to all who stand in front of him.
It was just too ridiculous to contemplate. That a 40-year-old man, who was unwanted by the UFC and literally forced them to let him fight in the Octogon after winless years in the Pride organisation, would go on a tear and knock out some of the best fighters in the world. Did I mention he’s five foot, 10 inches?
He was too old. The guys in front of him too tall. He was a dinosaur of the old Pride days in a sport that he has at times struggled to evolve with. Hunt was not to die out when extinction beckoned however. His turnaround has been favourably compared to that of James J Braddock in boxing. He is the Cinderella Man of this millennium.
Of course there has been an incredible combination of luck and timing. Soon to be former kingpin Cain Velasquez was injured again in training, forcing him to vacate his title three weeks before one of the biggest cards of the year at UFC 180. Velasquez’s dominance and line up of younger athletes meant that Hunt’s consideration for title contention was merely a media grab but nothing grounded in reality.
With less than a month’s notice to rebook the fight, all the top heavyweights have their dance cards full. With only three weeks’ notice the UFC had to find someone willing to step up.
Enter Mark Hunt. Dana White, well known to now have changed his opinion of Hunt and considered him “the greatest story in sports”. Although unthinkable twelve months ago, this opening has come after Hunt knocked out Roy Nelson last month. Hunt’s rising wave of popularity and cult-like status may have prompted the UFC brass to cash in while it still exists.
With three weeks to prepare (reportedly he has to lose 20 kilograms) against Brazilian jiu-jitsu blackbelt Fabricio Werdum, Hunt is certainly into very deep water. Werdum is a nightmare match up for Hunt as he is supremely conditioned and a master on the ground, and will no doubt immediately try and take Hunt down and submit him.
But never count out Hunt. His ground game has improved dramatically as he shrugged off attempts by blackbelts Stefan Struve, Nelson, Junior Dos Santos and Antonio Silva. His conditioning is better than ever before and he knows just like everyone else in the Mixed Martial Arts community that this opportunity will probably never come again.
It’s so superlative saturated that the timing of this fight with the Luke Rockhold versus Michael Bisping fight in Sydney next week may combine to launch Mixed Martial Arts into the Australian mainstream sporting landscape.
Despite all of this a 40-year-old Auckland-born Sydney-based fighter will fight for the golden crown in combat sports – the UFC Heavyweight title – in three weeks.
Alleluia!
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