By Jonathan Snowden

Tomorrow night Brock Lesnar and Tim Sylvia will enter the Octagon, Brock for the first time. They will both have something to prove, to themselves and to the fans. Sylvia should by rights be a legend. He’s a two time heavyweight champion at the peak of his powers. He’s beaten some of the best heavyweights in the world decisively, a who’s who of heavyweight MMA: Arlovski, Rodriguez, Monson, Vera. Despite this he is despised by the fans, or worse, ignored. When he fights Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for the UFC’s Heavyweight Title it will be in the very large shadow of Brock Lesnar. And Tim Sylvia is not happy.

“Brock’s done alot in WWE. He has a big name. Is the wrestler going to beat the fighter? They’re trying to hype it up that way. I understand the philosophy of him getting all the exposure. I think they’re bringing him in to get him beat. That’s why he’s getting all the exposure he’s getting,” Sylvia said. “Your average bozos who don’t know anything, see Brock coming in or these superstars like Kimbo Slice who haven’t really done anything and they think they’re studs.”

To say Sylvia is bitter is an understatement. He’s furious. This is a man who is desperate for attention, desperate to establish a legacy. Most fighters are happy to oblige fans when they see them on the strip in Vegas. Sylvia courts fans, walking around with his title belt on and introducing himself. He wants to be loved. Yet at the weigh ins he barely got more reaction than the prelim guys. And all the marketing and publicity for this show have been focussed on Lesnar. After six years with Zuffa, Sylvia is fighting for the title on the undercard in all but name, underneath a debuting fighter.

“Brock Lesnar hasn’t done anything in this sport to even stand next to me, let alone having UFC All-Access, let alone being on the fight poster,” Sylvia told UFC.com. ” He’s a great athlete, don’t get me wrong, and I was a fan of his when he was in WWE, and I trained with him, but he’s just getting a little too big for his britches when he starts talking about me, talking about the heavyweight division. He hasn’t even fought in the UFC yet; where does he get off talking like that?”

For Sylvia this is old hat. He’s been in this position before. He was the secondary attraction under the Tito Ortiz-Ken Shamrock II fight and the George St. Pierre-Matt Hughes fights too. In his title challenge to Arlovski he was given a very strong Tito Ortiz-Forrest Griffin fight as the co-main event. In boxing, heavyweights have always been the biggest draws, yet Zuffa has felt the need to give Sylvia’s title fights plenty of support. Sylvia is one of the strongest fighters of his era but he can’t draw fans. Which is why the UFC was so happy to gamble on Lesnar.

“Dana’s no dummy. He sees some credibility in Brock Lesnar as an amateur wrestler and I’ve got a lot of notoriety. This is a business and I’m very fortunate to be involved in it,” Lesnar said. “I think there’s a lot of interest. There’s a lot of interest in the MMA world, there’s a lot of interest in the sports entertainment world. There’s a huge following from all of the pro athletes. Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody’s talking about the UFC.”

Lesnar is everything Tim Sylvia is not. He looks like a fighter, like he would be happy hurting people. He has a chance to be MMA’s first real heavyweight star in America. The big money has always been at Light Heavyweight. This is the guy who can change all that. If he can fight of course. Reporters at a pre-fight conference call were focussed on his transition from the WWE to MMA, to the point that Brock felt the need to let the cat out of the bag all over again.

“Let’s get one thing straight here. Pro wrestling is purely entertainment. We go out there and know the outcomes of the bouts and obviously this is real. It’s the real deal so I’ve taken my training back to exactly how I was training as an amateur wrestler. It’s apples and oranges. You can’t even compare the two,” Lesnar said. Lesnar did pro wrestling for a short time, but it was never in his blood. WWE was all about making the most of his limited opportunities. “When I got out of college, after I won my NCAA title, I didn’t have a lot of options. There aren’t a lot of options for an amateur wrestler. You can go to the Olympics or you can become a coach. The bottom line was Vince had $250,000 waiting for me and a contract on the table and I was 21 years old and didn’t have a pot to piss in. Come on! you make the decision.”

Lesnar was making huge money and was the youngest WWE World Champion in history. Yet the urge to compete never left him. On tour he would takedown the 500 pound Big Show for fun and challenge Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle to impromptu amateur wrestling contests. It wasn’t enough. He left to try his hand at pro football. “He is a good athlete. He has a history of achievement. And you know he has a work ethic,” Scott Studwell, the Minnesotta Vikings director of college scouting said at the time. Ultimately he was too old and too raw a football player to make it to the NFL. But those same physical skills make him a threat to break into the upper echelon of MMA fighters because they will be applied in a more familiar setting. Lesnar compiled a 106-5 record in four years of college wrestling, winning the Division I championship for the University of Minnesota in 2000 after finishing second to New England Patriots star Stephen Neal the year before.

“Competition is in my blood and I’ve done it for a number of years whether its on a wrestling mat, in the ring, or in an octagon. It’s gonna be no different when they close the door on the Octagon. It’s me and one other man out there. I’ve been in those positions before. I’m going to be very comfortable,” Lesnar said. “Obviously I’m going to have a lot to prove. There’s going to be a lot of people gunning for me. I’m going to have to come out and prove myself, even to Tim (Sylvia), even to the other fighters. There’s going to be some people who disapprove of where I am on the card because of who I am. There’s going to be a lot of animosity towards me because of the visibility that I have.”

Both men face significant challenges tomorrow night. Both opponents will be looking to score submission victories. Lesnar’s huge salary means he won’t have the luxury of developing slowly as a fighter ideally should. He will be tested right away by former Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir. Mir isn’t taking this fight lightly. People always say they aren’t taking fights lightly, but Mir watched the Lesnar amateur wrestling DVDs. He knows his opponent has physical tools most in MMA can only dream about.

“Obviously Brock Lesnar is stronger than I am. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. He’s stronger than most anybody he’ll ever compete against. So if just lay there, I’m going to get crushed,” Mir said. “But if I can use constant motion and speed…like when a little guy fights a big guy in the gym, he has to use motion, movement, keep moving all the time. Because if you stand still all that weight is going to bear down on you.”

Lesnar has been working on his boxing and Thai skills but it would be a mistake to test Mir too much on his feet. Gold Medalist Karam Ibrahim fell in love with his rudimentary boxing skills and got put to sleep by Kazayuki Fujita, who like Mir is a competent but unspectacular striker. Lesnar will focus on his strength, wrestling, and hopes Mir is just the first pit stop on the road to the Championship.

“I’m tabbed as a professional wrestler. People tend to forget that I was an amateur wrestler for 18 years at a high level,” Lesnar said. ” I’ve got a lot to lose in this. This is my road to hopefully becoming the UFC heavyweight champion.”

It’s likely that road will lead Lesnar right to Tim Sylvia’s doorstep. Maybe then Big Tim will finally get the main event he deserves.