I haven’t seen a thread for this and I know there are some MMA fans around here, so I figured I would start one. The card looks like this:
Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin
Akiyama vs. Leben
Lytle vs. Brown
Soszynski vs. Bonnar
Sotiropoulos vs. Pellegrino
Schaub vs. Tuckscherer
Grove vs. Reljic
Petruzelli vs. Romero
Harris vs. Branch
Roberts vs. Petz
Madsen vs. Vemola
I have to say that I’m pretty stoked for Lesnar vs. Carwin. The Akiyama vs. Leben fight looks good too. As far as the rest, I’ll admit that I get most of my MMA fix by watching WEC on Versus so I’m not very familiar with the rest of the fighters on the card. Does anyone want to help out on what to look for or give some break downs?
As far as the main event, it’s sort of the classic case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Lesnar and Carwin are both huge and powerful. Both are national champion college wrestlers, Lesnar at Division I, Carwin at Division II. It sounds like Vegas odds currently have Lesnar as a slight favorite.
Carwin (12-0) has been the busier fighter and has more in ring experience, but looking through his list of opponents doesn’t seem all that impressive. The first seven opponents don’t even rate a Wiki page showing their wins and losses. His biggest win was probably his last when he dominated Mir. Carwin sounds like he’s a fairly decent, respectful guy. I’m guessing he will be the fan favorite.
Lesnar has a 4-1 record with his one loss coming to Mir. That loss was avenged last summer when Lesnar destroyed Mir. Lesnar’s other high quality win is a defeat of Couture who seemed very overmatched by Lesnar’s size and strength. Lesnar is coming off a one year lay off from fighting due to a very serious intestinal illness. Although he looks to be in great shape, it would be fair to question if he is as strong as he was and if ring rust will be a problem. Other than some fans from back in his pro wrestling days, I’m guessing the crowd will be letting him hear some boos. He really does come off as a prick once his adrenaline level is up (and no I would not tell him that in a bar!).
So, who’s going to win? That’s a great question and if I knew, I would have money down on it. A lot of the hype for the fight talks about how Lesnar hasn’t faced anyone with the size and strength of Carwin. That’s fair, but it ignores that the same applies for Carwin. With the size and power of these guys, I could easily see either winning this fight. I think I give a slight edge to Lesnar just based off that I think he’s a slightly more gifted athelete. I don’t see this one going more than one or two rounds.
None of Carwin’s fights have gone past one. I think that’s going to hold here one way or the other. Hopefully it’s because Carwin’s pounding Lesnar’s face into the canvas, but I really have no idea how it’ll shake out.
I’d have to mildly disagree about Couture being mismatched with Lesnar. Randy was picking him apart pretty steadily, and Brock was starting to look tired and frustrated before he clipped Randy for the knockout - it’s tough to move that much meat around. I’d really like to see Carwin take it, but to do that I think he has to knock him out. I’d have to give Brock the edge on wrestling.
Leben is a replacement, that fight was going to be Wanderlei’s, but he’s been injured. Akiyama’s favored, but Leben definitely could pull it off. Stephan Bonnar and Krzysztof Soszynski is a rematch, they just fought a close fight at UFC 110 in February, but Bonnar got a bad cut in an accidental headbutt and lost due to stoppage by the ring doc. He was plently PO’d and thought the fight should have been called a no contest, so the rematch has a little history behind it and should be a good one. Lytle and Brown is a rematch too, apparently Lytle choked Brown out by guillotine in 2007, but I don’t really remember that one off of the top of my head.
Well, that was sort of my point. It was Brock’s size more than anything that won that for him. Brock was gassed, but Couture was too from having Brock pressing him up against the cage for so long. That said, I guess Brock’s camp brought Couture in to train with him for this fight.
Thanks for the backgrounds on some of the other fights. I agree about Leben, btw. He will get in there and bang on Akiyama.
Ah, I gotcha. That knockout was one of the weirdest I’ve seen - it didn’t land on the button or anything, it looked like it only grazed Randy behind the ear. From a smaller fighter it might not have just been a glancing, but from Brock’s big ham hocks it was a show stopper. This should be a pretty good fight.
In before the fight hopefully. Couldn’t watch tonight had to fix the house.
Since there is only the last fight I call it maybe 60 percent for Lesnar to win. With two guys this big I think it will end quick with the first guy to land winning. That said Lesnar has better wrestling and is probably the better athlete.
Pretty close prediction, Miltonyz, only Lesnar survived Corwin landing on him in the first… barely.
Lesnar vs. Carwin sort of went how I figured (big shots, over quick), but then again not. I was surprised at how quickly Lesnar went to turtle mode after getting tagged with an upper cut. I’m guessing there were several times in the first round when the fight was seconds from being called. As Snarky mentioned, I’m also surprised at how gassed Carwin was after one round. More than anything, the fight seemed to show the weaknesses in each fighter. Lesnar’s stand up didn’t look good. It was obvious that Carwin had never went more than one round. Once Lesnar took him down in the second, it was pretty much over. Carwin never showed a sign of getting Lesnar off him. The thing is, I’m not sure if there’s anyone else in the division with the size and power to exploit these weaknesses at the moment. I expect to see Lesnar vs. Carwin II within two years.
All I have seen was the Lesnar-Carwin matchup via YouTube, but I have to say I am VERY surprised the fight wasn’t called when Lesnar was on the ground, bleeding and barely defending.
The first round went exactly as I had expected…except for the part where Brock didn’t get knocked cold.
Shane’s size and wrestling skills allowed him to counter Brock’s takedown attempt, and his striking was clearly superior. He dropped the champ and then pounded on him for the rest of the round. Like others here, I was very surprised the fight wasn’t stopped. Brock was defending but was eating some massive shots and mounting no offense.
But, to his credit he answered the bell in round 2, executed a perfect takedown, and set up a textbook arm triangle. I can’t really fault Carwin for blowing out all of his energy the way he did; he came within a hair’s breadth of finishing this fight the same way as all of his others. Against any other opponent, in a slightly lower-profile event, he probably would have.
I’ve not seen the full event yet - and from what I’ve been told, it was a cracker! - but I have seen the Lesnar v Carwin fight. Although Lesnar was lucky he had a ref who allowed him to get into a 2nd round situation, you have to admire the man’s technique in the way he finished Carwin off on the ground. Both of these guys are still improving though, so we are set for another tasty tear-up further down the line. That’s without throwing Cain Velasquez into the mix.
Lesnar was definitely lucky the ref didn’t stop it, BUT, IMO at least, that would have been a bad call. He was rocked from the uppercut and the followup shots, but at the same time, he proved he wasn’t hurt very quickly. Active on the ground, and even got off his back and had Carwin pinned against the cage for the last minute or so of round 1.
Of course round 2 speaks for itself.
Leben/Akiyama is Fight of the Year so far, in my book. What a barn-burner. Best fight I’ve seen since Couture/Nogueira.
People are saying that, since Fedor lost last weekend, this cements Brock as #1, but I thought Brock looked worse in his win than Fedor looked in his loss.
Lesnar is only getting better. There’s no question he’s the strongest now, but I predict several years of Brock domination. If that round 1 couldn’t knock him out, the man is literally unbeatable.
I’m not a Brock hater, but . . . no. Cain won’t gas when they fight. JDS won’t gas. Fedor won’t gas if they ever fight (unlikely as that is.) Overeem might gas if they ever fight, but he’s a far better striker than Carwin and might not need more than 1 round. I’m not saying these guys are shoe-ins to beat Brock, but they all pose very serious threats. No one is unbeatable. Not Brock, not Rickson, not BJ or Georges or Anderson . . . not even Lord Fedor.
The guy who does a Marciano and retires undefeated after 40+ fights on the MMA circuit, will be a special athlete indeed. I’d love to see it happen, but feel it is highly unlikely at the top level of MMA.
I always figured that if Fedor finished his career without losing again, he would contest his “loss” to TK and most likely get it overturned, thus retiring undefeated. Moot point now. It’ll probably be a very long time before it happens. Everyone gets Serra’d, or Chonaned, or Werdumed. The sport is just too unpredictable. I read an op-ed one time (by a boxing enthusiast :rolleyes: ) that argued this is why the sport will never achieve major mainstream success: they can’t build up reliable champions. But I think the fans will eventually mature to a point where they can accept fluke losses without suddenly turning on a guy who is 32 - 2 and saying he “sucks.”
Couldn’t just about the same thing be said about Couture? He shouldn’t have gassed, but he looked pretty spent by the second round just from having Brock pressing him up against the cage. I think I’ll have to see it. From what Dana White has been saying, it won’t take long either.
I’m certainly not saying that Brock can’t be beat. Mir proved that, and Carwin showed an excellent road map too (bully him). That said, Brock is showing new things every fight. His second round versus Carwin was incredibly efficient. I still expect him to get lazy at some point and drop another fight, but I think he’s a lot more viable as a champion than a lot of old school MMA fans want to give him credit for being.
Randy was rallying until he got caught by that “Go Go Gadget” (Randy’s term) canned ham. As pravnik said in post #3 of this thread, it was Brock who was starting to look spent towards the end.
Since I have never seen a replay of that fight, I’m going off year and a half old memory now… and I tend to drink a beer or two now and then. However, I will requote what I said back in the UFC 91 thread:
I’d really like to see Carwin take it, but to do that I think he has to knock him out. I’d have to give Brock the edge on wrestling.