03.12.2008, 09:40
Zitat:The Octagon Girl, a beauty in a blue bikini, announces the second round. Couture charges Lesnar, slugs him from the outside left and scores a direct hit, producing a laceration over Lesnar's right eye, which will require four stitches after the fight.
Then Couture makes a mistake. He is the smaller of the two men, but instead of keeping his distance he allows himself to become a target. Lesnar puts his full weight behind the blow, hitting Couture on his left ear and knocking him to the ground. The ensuing scene is something that raises doubts about Ultimate Fighting's right to exist.
Lesnar pounces on Couture, kneels over him and starts punching him in the head, doling out 17 blows in a seemingly endless 10 seconds, until the referee finally intervenes. After three minutes and seven seconds, Lesnar wins the fight by technical knockout. He climbs up onto the fence to reap his applause as the new world champion, but the audience boos him instead. Couture is lying on the floor, motionless, looking dead.
Seventeen blows to the head in 10 seconds, blows coming from a barely padded fist -- it sounds brutal. In fact, it is brutal, and it raises the question of whether Ultimate Fighting is a sport or simply assault.
A fight breaks out in the stands. Couture gets up, shakes himself and grins broadly, as if to prove that he still has all his teeth -- to howls of approval from his fans.
Two hours later, Couture is at an after-fight party in Studio 54. He has a split lower lip and swelling over his cheekbones. Drinking a beer, he says that he wasn't worried about his health. Dana White, standing next to him, admits that he was nervous.
But only for a moment. The two men are partners in a business that is supposed to look dangerous, that has to look dangerous to succeed. Looking dangerous is the whole idea.
Of course Ultimate Fighting is a sport, says White, and what a sport it is. "If you're on a field and they're playing football in one corner, basketball in the second corner and baseball in the third corner, and there's a fight going on in the fourth corner, what do you think people are watching?"
Exactly.