UFC 100 was a historic night for the sport of mixed martial arts, and Brock Lesnar used the occasion to avenge his previous loss to Frank Mir with a lopsided TKO victory. With the victory, Lesnar unified the promotion’s heavyweight championship. The Mir/Lesnar tilt was the main event on an epic card which culminated an insane week in Las Vegas.

UFC 100 drew unprecedented attention from not only the MMA media but the mainstream sports media as well. While outlets like ESPN have long treated MMA with disdain they were forced by the interest surrounding the event to give it prime coverage.

Preliminary buy rates suggest that more than 1.5 million people purchased the event, which would not only make it the UFC’s biggest PPV ever but put it in the top five of *all* PPV sporting events. While it fell short of the all time PPV record of 2.4 million buys set by the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight, the unprecedented interest has put MMA on the map to stay.

The main event established Lesnar as not only the UFC heavyweight champion, but the most hated ‘bad guy’ in the sport To his credit, he had a perfect gameplan for Mir that allowed him to use his strength and power to maul his opponent on the ground while minimizing his exposure to submissions.

Mir, on the other hand, made a tactical mistake by letting Lesnar put him on his back and pound away. He clearly underestimated Lesnar’s ability to defend his submissions and by the end of the first round had already suffered a nasty beating. Lesnar quickly took Mir down again at the start of the second round, ending the fight with a punishing ground and pound assault that prompted referee Herb Dean to call a stop to the contest at 1:48 of the second round.

Lesnar diminished his dominating performance with his postfight antics”he taunted Mir after the stoppage, prompting the crowd to boo him mercilessly. He followed this with a short and arrogant postfight interview that would have been much more at home in the WWE than in this setting. Mir was the consummate professional in defeat, giving credit to his opponent and generally displaying all of the class that Lesnar lacked.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and respected authority on sports betting odds comparison. He writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and an emu. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.