Fear This: Shane Carwin Destroys Mir, Earns Title Fight with Brock Lesnar

by

Kevin Sampson

Correspondent Written on March 27, 2010

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Results - Author Poll

Who will win at UFC 116, Brock or Shane

• Shane Carwin 63.9%

• Brock Lesnar 36.1%
• Total votes: 61

After many months of speculation and hype, Shane Carwin has finally fought again.

This wasn't just any fight.

This was biggest fight of his life to date. Taking on the one and a half time UFC Heavyweight Champion is no small challenge (and yes, I'm counting his time as Interim Champion as 1/2).

This is the rededicated Frank Mir who went from pure submissions artist to knocking out Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Cheick Kongo in brutal fashion. This is the Frank Mir that desperately wanted to avenge his loss to Brock Lesnar.

All he had to do was get past Shane Carwin.

Well, it didn't exactly play out that way. After this one-sided beatdown, Mir is just going to have to wait.

To his credit, this is the longest fight of Carwin's career—and that's not saying much since he too didn't survive the very first round.

No shame in that Frank. Nobody has ever survived one round with "The Engineer."

The almost forgotten mass of hype seems to have been confirmed. Shane Carwin is the real deal! The man is a beast!

It was absolutely shocking to see, even though I said it would happen. Shane Carwin was grinding away at Frank Mir in the clinch. And then Shane got one of those sledgehammer fists free, and let his left hand fly with devastating results.

Mir was stunned . Several more of those crushing left hands and Mir crumpled to the floor, where Shane Carwin pounded out the victory. UFC fighters and fans alike got a resounding reminder that this man has the most dangerous hands in all of MMA.

This means we'll see a fresh face to challenge Brock Lesnar for the title at UFC 116 on July 3. Frank Mir already accounts for two-fifths of Brock Lesnar's career fights, so I'm glad we won't be seeing Brock Lesnar vs Frank Mir 3 in July.

Mir is a first-rate fighter, but he was manhandled by Brock twice already. Time to see another challenger with a different skill set. And Carwin should give Brock all he can handle!

Brock is faster and probably a slightly better wrestler than Shane Carwin. Still, the disparity in wrestling skill is much less significant than you see when comparing Brock Lesnar to Frank Mir.

Carwin has better hands than Brock with more dangerous knockout power. He has Brazilian Jiu Jitzu skills, which is something that Brock Lesnar has never given us any indication of in his fights.

It's impossible to say whether Brock or Shane is the stronger man. If I had to guess, I'd say Brock but how can we truly know for certain?


As for the other results from UFC 111:

Matt Riddle might be the first fighter to win by DQ that I can remember who was absolutely dominating the fight right up to the disqualifying blow by Greg Soto . Not much reason to complain about this result.

Jared Hamman ground out a convincing three round Unanimous Decision over Rodney Wallace.

Rousimar Palhares brings his tally of heel-hook submission wins to five. His latest victim was Tomasz Drwal . With five of his 11 total victories, I think we can safely guess what Palhares favorite move is.

Ricardo Almeida pulls out a somewhat unexpected win by rear-naked choke over Matt Brown .

We're going to be subjected to Nate Diaz' loud obnoxious mouth a whole lot in the near future, as the younger Diaz brother absolutely destroyed Rory Markham by ground and pound TKO in round one. Diaz has every right to be proud of this victory, but you just know that we're all going to want to duct-tape his mouth shut in the next few days.

Jim Miller squeezes out a razor close Unanimous Decision victory over Mark Bocek .

Jon Fitch wins by Unanimous Decision once again, adding Ben Saunders to his list of victims. That brings Fitch's UD tally to 12, and we should now be able to comfortably modify his name to Jon "UD" Fitch.

I love Jon Fitch, but I do wish he'd finish an opponent every now and again. He won in dominant fashion though, and hopefully this locks up a title shot for Fitch.

Batman returns! Kurt Pellegrino came, he saw, he choked Fabricio Camoes out in the second round. Slightly surprising ending as Caomes looked like the busier submissions fighter at the beginning of the fight.

And in the main event, George "Rush" St Pierre did to Dan Hardy exactly what everyone expected: He issued a non-stop beat-down to "The Outlaw" from start to finish. Props to Dan Hardy for actually surviving that brutal beating for a full five rounds!

Quite a night of fights!