On November 12, 1993 The Ultimate Fighting Championship held it's first ever event.  UFC 1 took place in Denver, Colorado and featured a tournament bracket of fights that was dominated by the legendary Royce Gracie. 

Now more than 17 years later, UFC 100 arrives at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.  This momentous occasion will be held on July 11 and is being hyped by many as "the greatest mixed martial arts card the world has ever seen."  In honor of the event, FiveKnuckles' usual in-depth preview will go even more in-depth and provide you with a preview/breakdown of each main card fight every few days until the day of the event; at which time we'll wrap it up in a full event preview.  Part one of our five-part series previews one of the most-anticipated heavyweight rematches ever, Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar vs Interim Heavyweight Champion Frank Mir.

The first meeting between the two was in February of 2008.  The action was instant when Lesnar took Mir down and proceeded to drop hammerfists on his face and head.  Referee Steve Mazzagatti stopped the fight, stood them up, and deducted a point from Lesnar for illegal blows to the back of Mir's head.  The fight resumed with the same result, Mir on his back trying to take shelter from fists the size of wrecking balls until he got a hold of a leg, trapped Lesnar in a kneebar, and forced him to tap.  The decision to stand them up has come under scrutiny by many fans who claim that Lesnar wasn't properly warned and that Mir was given time to recover from the first barrage.  The result had rematch written all over it and that was before Lesnar won the Heavyweight Championship strap from UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture and Mir won the Interim Title from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

The fight was originally slated for UFC 98 in May but Mir sustained a knee injury during training that forced the fight to be pushed back and drew immediate criticism from Lesnar who questioned the legitimacy of Mir's injury and accused him of being scared.  Mir fired back, comparing Lesnar's punching power to that of his baby sister.  Let the games begin.

The biggest concern for Lesnar coming into this fight is obviously his submission defense.  He says he got overzealous in the first go around and made a mistake.  He also says that he won't make that mistake again.  Since that fight he's been very impressive in a unanimous decision over Heath Herring and the defeat of Couture for the belt.  The word on the street is that he's been working extremely hard on all aspects of his game and we should expect to see some improvement as a result of that hard work.  Having a foundation as a division I wrestling champ has made for an impressive transition thus far and the learning curve is high for someone whose first professional fight was just over two years ago.  Whether it's enough to surpass the many years of mixed martial arts training that Mir has undergone remains to be seen.  

The game plan for Mir is a bit more complicated.  He definitely wants to avoid the bullrush takedown followed by the donkey kong style ground and pound.  If he ends up on his back he wants to keep Lesnar in his guard and look for a submission.  While on their feet it would be a good idea to stay out of the reach of the...