Over the next few weeks, much will be said and written about Lesnar and St. Pierre. Their considerable abilities will be lauded, their best punches, kicks and takedowns replayed over and over again, and their vast potential in the sport of MMA trumpeted to the high heavens.

But instead of joining the ranks of journalists heaping justifiable praise onto the muscular shoulders of St. Pierre and Lesnar, I'd like to instead address the tragic fact that "win or else you suck" mentality of North American fans is going to prevent the losers from getting their due.

In the semi-main event, Herring endured unbelievable punishment from the very start of the bout, absorbing brutal strike after brutal strike without ever seeming to even consider waving the white flag. What many will fail to realize is that Herring was also doing a lot of things correctly on the ground, and that many of his sweep attempts and takedown blocks would have worked against 99% of the fighters out there. Sadly for him, Lesnar belongs to the 1% of fighters whose strength is nearly beyond measure, and to whom the laws of physics seem to fail to apply. I can pretty much guarantee that Herring suffered serious rib damage from the knees of Lesnar in addition to having both eyes swollen shut, but still he lasted until the bitter, painful end.

As for Jon Fitch, what can you say about a guy who is beaten from pillar to post in the very first round and promptly comes off his stool to work himself right back into the fight? In the early going, I feared that my predictions of Fitch posing the greatest challenge to GSP's title to date would be proven ridiculously false. But Fitch showed himself to be made of sterner stuff than most, and through sheer force of will he came back to temporarily rock the champion and force GSP to earn every second of his victory. For five grueling rounds Fitch endured, persevered, and battled back, and in doing so he demonstrated a type of warrior spirit with which only a handful of men in every generation are gifted.