UFC 131 takes place this Saturday night, June 11 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The original main event for this summer kickoff was Brock Lesnar vs. Junior dos Santos, with the winner guaranteed a title shot against Cain Velasquez some…
UFC 131 takes place this Saturday night, June 11 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The original main event for this summer kickoff was Brock Lesnar vs. Junior dos Santos, with the winner guaranteed a title shot against Cain Velasquez sometime this fall, probably November 2011.
Velasquez tore his rotator cuff en route to defeating Lesnar for the undisputed UFC heavyweight championship of the world last October. Dos Santos, who was scheduled to face Velasquez for the title, agreed to fight Lesnar for the No. 1 contendership instead of crowning an interim champion.
But Lesnar pulled out of the fight after a recurrence of diverticulitis, and Carwin (who gave Lesnar all he could handle at UFC 116) stepped in as Dos Santos’ opponent.
UFC has now released the first video to hype Shane Carwin vs. Junior dos Santos, and Carwin comes across like a menacing beast ready to beat the living hell out of Dos Santos. While I think Dos Santos has the skills to put away Carwin, I watched the extended preview for UFC 131 with surprise at how Carwin seemed to relish the spotlight and how hungry he seems to smash Dos Santos in the face.
“I like Junior dos Santos, but I’m going after the (UFC heavyweight) title,” Carwin stated matter-of-factly in the preview video.
Carwin, an NCAA Division II heavyweight champion, coldly stated, “These hands are meant to tear somebody apart.”
That was a cold, chilling statement, but nothing compared to the moment where Carwin said, “I respect Junior dos Santos, but I’m going to knock him out, and I’m not going to feel any remorse for it.”
Carwin also said, “I’m going to knock out Junior dos Santos, and I think he knows it.”
Dos Santos is the same as he always is, the same likable personality you saw on The Ultimate Fighter this season. Carwin seems like a man with something to prove, especially after the loss to Lesnar, and he hits the pay-per-view consumer right on the chin with the line, “People who pay to see Shane Carwin fight are really going to get their money out of this one!”
The extended preview show is available online. I highly recommend it to all MMA fans. It’s one of the better hype shows in a while. Check it out here.
Shane Carwin vs. Junior dos Santos at UFC 131 takes place this Saturday night, June 11, live on pay-per-view.
UFC 131 is just around the corner, and the fight card is shaping up into an exciting one.The main event featuring Junior dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin, as well as the featherweight debut of Kenny Florian facing Diego Nunes, will headline the pay-per-view…
UFC 131 is just around the corner, and the fight card is shaping up into an exciting one.
The main event featuring Junior dos Santos vs. Shane Carwin, as well as the featherweight debut of Kenny Florian facing Diego Nunes, will headline the pay-per-view, but there are other great fights on the card as well.
With under a week remaining before the fights take place, let’s take a look at each bout in this full breakdown of the UFC 131 fight card.
You can train your boxing, you can work on your wrestling, you can become a wizard at hitting submissions off your back, but the one thing that you can’t learn is the ability to land an explosive right hand and stop any fighter in the world in th…
You can train your boxing, you can work on your wrestling, you can become a wizard at hitting submissions off your back, but the one thing that you can’t learn is the ability to land an explosive right hand and stop any fighter in the world in their tracks.
There are ways to improve power, but the guys who can put anyone out by throwing one solid shot to the chin are a different breed of being. The raw power that these seven fighters have is something they’re just born with, and no matter how hard you try, it is impossible to replicate.
“Speed kills.” Ask anyone in the sports of boxing who will win between a fighter who has fast hands and someone who possesses power but lacks speed, and you will often get the former as the answer. If this will apply in the upcoming title-eliminat…
“Speed kills.” Ask anyone in the sports of boxing who will win between a fighter who has fast hands and someone who possesses power but lacks speed, and you will often get the former as the answer.
If this will apply in the upcoming title-eliminator match between former title contender Shane Carwin and upcoming superstar Junior dos Santos, then it is much likely that the Brazilian will take the victory, as he is known to be the faster fighter.
Just take a look at “Cigano’s” last six fights in the UFC, and you’ll find out how he managed to win by out-striking notable stand-up fighters known for their power: Fabricio Werdum, Stefan Struve, Mirco Flipovic, Gilbert Yvel, Gabriel Gonzaga and Roy Nelson—all of which ended with a finish except for the last one.
In dos Santos’ fight with Nelson at UFC 117, he managed to out-point the former IFL heavyweight champion who is known for his knockout power. Nelson tried to land power shots during the fight but was overwhelmed with the speed that dos Santos possesses.
Even though “Cigano” had not managed to end the fight with a finish, he had still done enough to earn a unanimous decision by turning “the Big Country” into a punching bag.
Meanwhile, Shane Carwin can brag about his own record of knockout wins over four of his last five opponents in the UFC. Nonetheless, none of those fighters possessed the same striking skills as dos Santos, with the only notable ones being Frank Mir and Gabriel Gonzaga—two fighters who are not even classified as “pure strikers.”
If Carwin’s fight against dos Santos turns out to be a boxing match, as most predict, then Carwin might be in for a long night with dos Santos.
Remember how boxing’s pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao defeated his supposed-to-be toughest test in Miguel Cotto? The Pacman used more of his speed than his power to win, making Cotto, who is known for his power-punching, quit due to the number of punches he received.
The strategy of using speed as an advantage is well-supported by Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddy Roach.
For instance, in one of his trainee’s fight, he was quoted saying, “We took a lot of the muscle out of the upper body and put it in his lower body, into his legs. If you have a guy with speed, it’s the best asset in the world, why would you take away from that and try to build him up? There’s no sense in that whatsoever. Speed kills,” when asked about the camp’s strategy in Amir Khan’s title fight against Andreas Kotelnik.
In order to win, Carwin should use more of his wrestling to gain control of the fight. He can try to test the water in the stand-up department but must be wise in choosing where the fight goes should he discover that he is in a certain disadvantageous position.
Perhaps Carwin should take a lesson or two from fellow contender Brock Lesnar on using power for wrestling rather than boxing. In my opinion, this is the only way he can gain victory from dos Santos and align himself to get another title shot.
Shane Carwin’s return to the Octagon to face Ultimate Fighter coach Junior Dos Santos for No. 1 heavyweight title contendership at UFC 131 this Saturday is almost one year after his last appearance in what was a tough loss to former UFC heavyweigh…
Shane Carwin’s return to the Octagon to face Ultimate Fighter coach Junior Dos Santos for No. 1 heavyweight title contendership at UFC 131 this Saturday is almost one year after his last appearance in what was a tough loss to former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar.
Carwin’s matchup with Dos Santos was a question of being in the right place at the right time. Lesnar coached opposite Dos Santos in the 13th installment of the The Ultimate Fighter, and he was scheduled to fight the Brazilian at UFC 131 in Vancouver.
Unfortunately for Lesnar and to the benefit of Carwin, the diverticulitis that kept Lesnar out for close to a year spanning 2009 and 2010 came back, and the former champ was forced to pull-out of his fight with Dos Santos and undergo surgery to correct the problem.
Carwin, already in training camp to fight UFC newcomer Jon-Olav Einemo at UFC 131, was the only credible candidate available to step in for Lesnar on short notice.
Carwin couldn’t have asked for a better scenario, and at 36 years of age, he needs a little bit of luck to help get him back to a title fight as soon as possible, seeing as how time is not on his side.
Talking about father time, one of the things that tends to happen as an athlete ages is their physical skills and abilities begin to erode until there comes a point that they can’t compete anymore.
Having rarely gone out of the first round or the first minute in a fight for that matter, Carwin’s body still has plenty of athleticism to compete with the best. However, in his loss to Lesnar last summer, Carwin looked a little too hard to finish in the first round, and the behemoth of a man seemed to have punched himself out.
At the end of Round 1, Lesnar got back up from a beating that lasted for close to four minutes of a five minute round and controlled the action until the close. At the start of Round 2, Carwin looked exhausted and it didn’t take long for Lesnar to put him on his back and work towards an arm triangle submission victory and second straight title defense.
Fans and media felt the reason Carwin lost was due to his apparent lack of cardiovascular fitness and that he would always be a fighter that has to look to finish early to win.
Carwin went through some surgery of his own this winter for severely pinched nerves in his neck and had some time to reinvent himself as well.
In episode four of Here We Go: Camp Carwin, Shane explains how he has changed his diet, lost 30 pounds, all the while maintaining his explosiveness and athleticism. The episode also claims that the camp has focused on improving his endurance in the Octagon.
Of course, cutting down on body fat percentage and eating a healthy diet is going to help one’s level of physical fitness; there is no disputing that fact.
However, something that seems to have been lost in the shuffle is that what happened to Carwin in the Lesnar fight wasn’t necessarily as much a question about Carwin’s cardiovascular fitness, but rather the expression of an underlying medical condition.
Carwin took to his twitter account after the Lesnar fight and explained that what he had was not a problem with his cardiovascular fitness per se, but actually the expression of a medical condition called lactic acidosis.
“What happened to me July 3rd is called ‘Lactic Acidosis’. It was brought on by a few things and mainly not breathing while exerting energy. I was all cramped up, nausea and major head ache.” Carwin tweeted shortly after the fight with Lesnar.
I am no medical expert and won’t go into the details, more information on the condition can be found at Medline Plus.
Interestingly, in the description of the condition one of the most common causes of onset is intense physical exercise, something a professional fighter is doing every time they compete.
Carwin did say that it was brought on mainly because he didn’t breath, and that may very well be the case, and improvements in his breathing rhythms along with his new diet and weight may be the key to success.
That being said, if lactic acidosis is something that has happened to Carwin in the past, it may happen again. One has to imagine that the longer a fight goes on at an intense pace the chances Carwin experiences the symptoms he experienced in the Lesnar fight probably increases drastically.
There is not doubting Dos Santos’ abilities, he is a great boxer and doesn’t give his opponents a chance to catch their breath (just ask Roy Nelson), so Carwin will probably be pushing the limits once again and it will be interesting to see whether his body locks up on him or not.
The fact that Carwin has only left Round 1 on one occasion over 13 fights, along with his tremendous knockout power, might mean the big man probably doesn’t have to worry too much.
Furthermore, if his cardio is as good as he says it is, then making sure he breaths properly and is patient with his punches might be enough to keep him from locking up against Dos Santos this Saturday Night.
Leon Horne has been contributing to Bleacher Report for three years now. He focuses mainly on mixed martial arts, but he has also written about tennis, football and hockey. Just send him a message if you want to talk sports or discuss any opportunities. You can follow him on Twitter for updates:
Originally set to face former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar at UFC 131, Junior Dos Santos will now face former UFC interim heavyweight champion Shane Carwin in a heavyweight No. 1 contender tilt. The winner gets his shot at champ Cain Velasquez…
Originally set to face former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar at UFC 131, Junior Dos Santos will now face former UFC interim heavyweight champion Shane Carwin in a heavyweight No. 1 contender tilt. The winner gets his shot at champ Cain Velasquez.
Massive in size and coming from a high-level wrestling pedigree, Carwin shares some similarities with “Cigano’s” original opponent. The main difference between Carwin and Lesnar however lies in Carwin’s devastating punching power.
However, Carwin will be facing an opponent in Dos Santos with just as much, if not more, power in his hands. Add to that a few other key advantages on this list, and Carwin looks to be biting off more than he can chew. Here’s five reasons you’ll be seeing Junior Dos Santos with his hand raised instead of Shane Carwin.
UFC 131 takes place this Saturday night, June 11 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. The original main event for this summer kickoff was Brock Lesnar vs. Junior dos Santos, with the winner guaranteed a title shot against Cain Velasquez sometime this fall, probably November 2011.