My immediate reaction to changing Brock Lesnar and substituting in Shane Carwin was “Junior dos Santos will crush him.”
The more I think about it though, the more of a good—and better—main event fight it will be.
Carwin is deserving of a second shot at a title and JDS is a great stepping stone to get there. If Carwin does get a shot at Cain Velasquez, it’s very well deserved seeing as he had Lesnar beat until he gassed.
But the fight between Carwin and JDS is more interesting now. Instead of watching Lesnar trying to take down JDS the entire fight, you get two guys who know how to strike and do it very well.
Carwin was able to get rocked and get going again as evident by his first round, knockout win over Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 96.
But Gonzaga is no JDS. JDS has great striking ability and is very agile. The man even knows how to do the “Showtime Kick” for crying out loud.
You couldn’t possibly put two better fighters in the cage at UFC 131.
Not to mention now we don’t have to see Carwin fight someone like Jon Olav Einemo. Einemo hasn’t even fought since 2006.
Carwin now gets a nice tough test against someone of name value and a top heavyweight in the world. Coming off an injury that required surgery.
The fight features two good strikers now that could duke it out to earn the right to face Velasquez sometime in the fall of this year.
Unlike the removal of Gray Maynard versus Frankie Edgar from UFC 130, this is a good move for the card.
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