On This Day In 2008: Brock Lesnar Defeated Randy Couture To Become UFC Heavyweight Champ

On this day in 2008, a fresh faced Brock Lesnar silenced the doubters inside a packed out MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, beating Randy "The Natural" Couture to become UFC heavyweight champion.

Lesnar was somewhat of an underdog going into his title fight at UFC 91.

Just nine months previously, he suffered a damning defeat on his UFC debut against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specialist Frank Mir, who secured a knee-bar submission to make history inside the opening 91 seconds of round one.

A routine win over Heath Herrin at UFC 87 in August that year would certainly help Lesnar's cause, but there were still doubts over his technical ability - that was until Saturday November 15th, 2008.

Lesnar stopped the three-time UFC heavyweight titleholder in dramatic fashion, but it looked like Couture had executed his game plan perfectly in the opening round.

'The Beast Incarnate' grounded the champion with a double-leg takedown but when he tried to mount, 'The Natural' reversed his move and Brock looked in real trouble.

Lesnar eventually reversed and was picking off big strikes in round one, although they weren't connecting as well as he'd have liked.

That all changed in round two.

In the early stages, Brock landed a blow and quickly followed it up with a devastating elbow to rock Couture, who used his experience to back up into the cage and recover.

The pair appeared to be on a level playing field for spells, especially when the 45-year-old MMA legend landed a decent blow to Lesnar than opened up a cut on his eye.

But Lesnar soon landed a powerful straight right that left Couture on the mat. Brock capitalised and landed several huge hammerfists to his opponent before the referee called a halt at 3:07 of Round 2.

Brock reached the top of the tree in mixed martial arts just 17 months after making his debut in the sport. He went on to avenge his defeat by Mir and made one more successful defence of the title against Shane Carwin.

But back-to-back defeats by Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem and a positive doping test against Mark Hunt proved to be the end of his MMA career.

Nowadays Lesnar is back in the WWE and wrecking havoc in the wrestling world.

Do you think he should consider a return to the UFC?

Let us know in the comments below.

Topics: UFC News, UFC, MMA, Brock Lesnar

Jack Kenmare

Jack Kenmare is a writer at SPORTbible. He's interviewed some of the biggest names in sport, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Pele, Carles Puyol and Tim Henman. He dabbles in all things sport but football is his biggest passion. He was once hit in the head by a wayward strike from Nicky Butt and lived to tell the tale.

@jackkenmare_