UFC 116: Lesnar Takes Beating, Still Taps Out Winded Carwin
If you didn’t walk away from the Shane Carwin versus Brock Lesnar fight on Saturday night asking yourself wondering what just happened, you either aren’t a fan of MMA or you were hitting on the waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings.
And unless your waitress looked like Arianny Celeste and you sealed the deal, it wasn’t worth it, because you missed out on what will probably be the best heavyweight fight this year — a fight that actually lived up to the hype.
Would you have believed it if someone told you a fight between Lesnar and Carwin would last beyond the first round, Lesnar would only throw two power punches, and the fight would end by submission? And on top of that, it wasn’t even Carwin, who was supposed to have an excellent ground game according to Greg Jackson, who got the submission — it was Lesnar
In spite of the overall awkwardness of some of the numbers, we learned a lot about both of the fighters: we learned that Lesnar isn’t completely indestructible, and we learned that Carwin is definitely prone to gassing out.
Carwin looked like he had the right game plan when he caught Lesnar with a counter right and fought off the ensuing takedown after the fighters felt each other out in the first round. Carwin capitalized on a Lesnar slip and pinned him to the ground against the cage, landing absolute bombs with the referee looking down at Lesnar, who was barely defending himself, and looked very close to turtling up. Tiring, Carwin had to back off of Lesnar to catch his breath. He made another short-lived effort to go back to ground and take Lesnar out, but he was too tired, and Lesnar worked his way back up to his feet.
Lesnar came out in the second round and scored a quick takedown. He then worked his way into the mount position, and right at the moment everybody thought he would posture up and start smashing Carwin with his 4XL gloves, he trapped Carwin’s right arm against his neck, jumped to the right, and locked in a suffocating arm triangle choke. Carwin hung on for a few seconds before Lesnar made a slight adjustment, sinking the choke in.
Next up for Lesnar is another power puncher with a strong wrestling base in Cain Velasquez. However, if Velasquez smells blood in the water he won’t back down — he may even hit Lesnar harder. Next up for Carwin, probably a fight that is more about his getting him mentally back on track as opposed to physically. If he can learn to pace himself, he’s gonna be a handful for anyone in the heavyweight division.