Tag: Shane Carwin

Shane Carwin Pulls out of Fight vs. Roy Nelson with Knee Injury

UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin will not face Roy Nelson at The Ultimate Fighter Finale on Dec. 15 due to a knee injury, according to promotion president Dana White (via Twitter):
WOW!! It never ends Carwin blew his knee out. Looking for a new opponent f…

UFC heavyweight Shane Carwin will not face Roy Nelson at The Ultimate Fighter Finale on Dec. 15 due to a knee injury, according to promotion president Dana White (via Twitter):

The fight was set to be the headline of the card that’s airing live on FX from the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It’s the second time he has missed a bout against Nelson. In January of 2011, Carwin withdrew due to back and neck pain stemming from a November 2010 surgery.

This setback is the latest in a string of injuries that have hampered the very promising Carwin (12-2). He re- injured his back in training in 2011 and has been rehabbing from the ensuing surgery for over the past year.

His career hasn’t been all bad news and gloom, though, despite the slew of injuries.

In 2010, Carwin defeated former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir to obtain the first-ever UFC Interim Heavyweight Championship. That was the last time the champion held his arms high after a round in the Octagon.

Carwin has not fought since losing a unanimous decision to current heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos in June of 2011 prior to the back injury. It was his second consecutive loss in UFC competition.

The former champ will have to wait to get off this losing streak. Luckily for him it wasn’t an aggravation of the back and neck issues that have kept him sidelined for much of the past two years.

However, if “blown out” is as bad as Dana White made it sound, Carwin could be in store for another long rehab process that could leave him even more slowed than the series of back injuries made him.

You have to wonder how big of a toll these injuries will have on both the physical and mental ability of Carwin to continue on in the grueling UFC heavyweight division.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Shane Carwin Injured, Out of TUF 16 Finale Fight with Roy Nelson

Well, it looks like our suspicions and worries about Shane Carwin have been confirmed.UFC president Dana White has announced that Carwin won’t be making his return at the upcoming The Ultimate Fighter season finale against Roy Nelson.White set things i…

Well, it looks like our suspicions and worries about Shane Carwin have been confirmed.

UFC president Dana White has announced that Carwin won’t be making his return at the upcoming The Ultimate Fighter season finale against Roy Nelson.

White set things in stone via Twitter, saying that the hunt’s officially on to find a new opponent for “Big Country” before the December 15th card:

WOW!! It never ends. Carwin blew his knee out. Looking for a new opponent for Roy on the TUF Finale on FX.

Carwin had actually reported himself injured earlier this year but planned to recover in time for his matchup with Nelson.

That won’t be the case anymore, as this injury will definitively sideline the 37-year-old Carwin for the rest of 2012 and most likely a large chunk of 2013. Carwin last stepped into the Octagon on June 11, 2011, losing a brutal one-sided striking match against current champion Junior dos Santos at UFC 131.

Pickings for a worthy headliner may be slim right now, as several other heavyweights are either injured or already have fights scheduled.

Currently, The Ultimate Fighter: Team Carwin vs. Team Nelson Finale on FX also features a heavyweight bout between Shane del Rosario and Pat Barry. Both men are coming off hard losses, but it’s conceivable that one of them might get the call to step in for Carwin.

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson Pass Their Random NSAC Drug Tests


(“All natural, bro. No steroids. No testosterone. I’ve never hired a nutritionist. I’ve never bought hair conditioner. I ate my dog‘s food once, but it was an accident.” Photo via MMAWeekly)

Unlike some people we know, UFC heavyweights Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson are training without the help of performance-enhancing drugs. According to Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer (via MMAMania), Carwin and Nelson have both tested negative for steroids and diuretics, after being tapped for random testing last month.

Currently babysitting the worst Ultimate Fighter cast of all time, Carwin and Nelson are slated to face off at the surprisingly stacked TUF 16 Finale card on December 15th. Neither fighter has ever failed a drug test in their professional MMA career, though Carwin’s name was previously linked to an illegal steroids ring based in Mobile, Alabama. His manager, Jason Genet, recently gave a full explanation of how that happened, which seems reasonable enough, although that part about Carwin hanging out with Ron Waterman and ripping phone books in half is a little odd, to say the least.


(“All natural, bro. No steroids. No testosterone. I’ve never hired a nutritionist. I’ve never bought hair conditioner. I ate my dog‘s food once, but it was an accident.” Photo via MMAWeekly)

Unlike some people we know, UFC heavyweights Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson are training without the help of performance-enhancing drugs. According to Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director Keith Kizer (via MMAMania), Carwin and Nelson have both tested negative for steroids and diuretics, after being tapped for random testing last month.

Currently babysitting the worst Ultimate Fighter cast of all time, Carwin and Nelson are slated to face off at the surprisingly stacked TUF 16 Finale card on December 15th. Neither fighter has ever failed a drug test in their professional MMA career, though Carwin’s name was previously linked to an illegal steroids ring based in Mobile, Alabama. His manager, Jason Genet, recently gave a full explanation of how that happened, which seems reasonable enough, although the part about Carwin hanging out with Ron Waterman and ripping phone books in half is a little questionable, to say the least.

Joey Rivera: Roy Nelson Basically Felt That Doing TUF Was a Wrinkle in His Plans

It has been an up and down season 16 of The Ultimate Fighter in terms of the fights and ratings. The ratings for this season have hit a low of 624,000 viewers with a high mark of 1.1 million, which has been achieved twice with last week’…

It has been an up and down season 16 of The Ultimate Fighter in terms of the fights and ratings. The ratings for this season have hit a low of 624,000 viewers with a high mark of 1.1 million, which has been achieved twice with last week’s episode hitting that number.

The season overall has been averaging 863,000 viewers, which is down when they went with TUF LIVE format earlier this year when it averaged a little more than a million viewers.

The fights have been the same thing as the ratings—up and down. We see fights like last week between Roy Nelson team fighter Jon Manley defeating Shane Carwin team fighter James Chaney via submission. Then we get fights like we saw about two weeks ago between Michael Hill and Matt Secor where for the most part the fight stalled before ending in controversy when the judges announced Hill got the victory.

Episode three of TUF saw the oldest member of the show—Team Nelson’s Joey Rivera—defeat Team Carwin’s number one selection Sam Alvey by majority decision. The 32 year old who fights out of Tucson, Arizona got into MMA due to the rough atmosphere of his early days in New Jersey.

“I first started training in 1997, when I was still in high school,” Rivera told Bleacher Report. “I started in aikido and then started doing judo. I really fell in love though with grappling. It was a great way to not get in trouble and to do something for myself. My neighborhood in New Jersey wasn’t the best and grappling was a good outlet for me to get away and find something I like to do.”

Most guys who make The Ultimate Fighter usually only tryout once to make the show. Rivera, however,  tried out numerous times and felt that he wasn’t going to get that break of getting on the show.

“I had actually tried out three different times,” Rivera stated. “I actually tried out for the welterweight season, the lightweight season and another welterweight season. Finally they had another tryout, which was for this current season, but I wasn’t going to go because I had felt I tried too many times. They (UFC) said I didn’t have to tryout anymore and they accepted me.

“They (UFC) took me to the interview and accepted me. It was like all the hard work is now beginning to pay off.”

Roy Nelson has been questioned by UFC President Dana White in the past regarding the way Nelson looks, his work ethic; the list goes on and on. You see some of those things on the show, such as after Rivera’s victory Nelson made his guys pick a straw and whoever drew the shortest either had to fight or pass the straw to another teammate. Julian Lane got the shortest straw and chose to fight.

Rivera says he respects Nelson as a fighter, but questions Nelson’s fight selections, training methods and his commitment to the show from the very first practice up to last week’s episode.

“We as a team are frustrated with those things and we noticed it at the beginning, from the very first practice to right now in the season,” Rivera stated. “Its not that Roy Nelson is a bad guy. I just think that he’s probably a lot better fighter than he is a coach.

“Roy Nelson is a heavyweight. The first episode he basically said that his wife was pregnant and this (TUF) was a wrinkle in his plans because he had a fight coming up in December and all this other stuff. Exactly what he said is what we are to him.

“He lives in Vegas and if you compare him to Shane Carwin, where he came and brought in Nate Marquardt, his wrestling and strength and conditioning coach. He brought a team down. In where that with Roy Nelson, he lives in Vegas and he thinks he has that luxury of going home and relaxing where these guys (Carwin’s coaches) are on the job. He plans it a little better.”

Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained firsthand.

You can follow me on Twitter @fightclubchi.  

Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com

Roy Nelson, Shane Carwin Tapped for Random Drug Testing by NSAC, Ahead of TUF 16 Finale Fight


(Not pictured: Fabricio Werdum and Junior Dos Santos, merrily sharing a caipirinha.)

All of Roy Nelson‘s rabble-rousing about drug-testing has paid off…sort of. While Big Country has been campaigning to have his upcoming fight against Shane Carwin overseen by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), it was confirmed today that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has informed both fighters that they’ll be subject to random testing at some point before their December 15th meeting at the TUF 16 Finale. The fighters will need to provide samples within 24 hours of request, and the results will be returned in approximately two weeks.

(Serious question: The NSAC is completely within its rights to randomly drug test fighters out of competition, so why is it necessary to inform those fighters that that’s what it intends to do? I’m just saying, if you were Nelson or Carwin, and you were, hypothetically, using steroids up until yesterday, and the NSAC calls you and says they’re going to randomly test you sometime in the next two months, wouldn’t that be your signal to stop using PEDs immediately and hope they’re out of your system by the time they ask for your piss?)

If you’ve been keeping up on this story, you know that Carwin’s camp had been against VADA’s involvement from the beginning, with Shane’s manager Jason Genet calling VADA an “opportunistic” organization with an “anti-Shane” bias, and questioning why an independent testing body is any better than the athletic commission testing currently in place for MMA fighters. “I’m questioning where the relevancy coming from,” Genet said earlier this week. “As a manager, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree with outside testing. I want to know what’s wrong with what’s currently taking place.”


(Not pictured: Fabricio Werdum and Junior Dos Santos, merrily sharing a caipirinha.)

All of Roy Nelson‘s rabble-rousing about drug-testing has paid off…sort of. While Big Country has been campaigning to have his upcoming fight against Shane Carwin overseen by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency (VADA), it was confirmed today that the Nevada State Athletic Commission has informed both fighters that they’ll be subject to random testing at some point before their December 15th meeting at the TUF 16 Finale. The fighters will need to provide samples within 24 hours of request, and the results will be returned in approximately two weeks.

(Serious question: The NSAC is completely within its rights to randomly drug test fighters out of competition, so why is it necessary to inform those fighters that that’s what it intends to do? I’m just saying, if you were Nelson or Carwin, and you were, hypothetically, using steroids up until yesterday, and the NSAC calls you and says they’re going to randomly test you sometime in the next two months, wouldn’t that be your signal to stop using PEDs immediately and hope they’re out of your system by the time they ask for your piss?)

If you’ve been keeping up on this story, you know that Carwin’s camp had been against VADA’s involvement from the beginning, with Shane’s manager Jason Genet calling VADA an “opportunistic” organization with an “anti-Shane” bias, and questioning why an independent testing body is any better than the athletic commission testing currently in place for MMA fighters. “I’m questioning where the relevancy coming from,” Genet said earlier this week. “As a manager, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree with outside testing. I want to know what’s wrong with what’s currently taking place.”

So here’s Brent Brookhouse of BloodyElbow, pointing out the criticism that this immediately opens Shane and his camp up to:

First of all, “what’s wrong with the testing” is that it’s woefully bad. VADA tests for more substances and via more methods than anything the commissions are doing. Commissions aren’t engaging in Carbon Isotope Ratio testing, VADA is. To act like there’s the slightest debate over if VADA is better than the commission checking urine is absurd and nonsense of the highest degree…Now, with Carwin’s prior attachment to a steroid pharmacy and now looking like they’re ducking VADA testing, the accepted best method for combat sports testing, is not going to make Shane look particularly good.

And wasn’t that Nelson’s intention all along? Like BJ Penn and Floyd Mayweather before him, this public outcry to “clean up the sport” is just a new form of gamesmanship, in which a fighter can make his opponent come off as a cheater in the eyes of the public, simply by refusing the special terms laid out by his opponent. If Carwin winds up whooping Nelson’s ass, Nelson can always call the result into question. Who knows what Shane was really using before the fight, right? The VADA testing could have revealed the truth, but Shane ducked it. Maybe the fight would have gone a different way if blah blah blah, etc.

For now, the NSAC’s random testing will have to be good enough. And while that testing isn’t the most effective method available, it’s not completely useless either.

Friday Link Dump: Grisly Details on Jeremy Stephens’ Alleged Assault, Drug Testing Controversy on TUF + More


(If only the fight were held under West Coast Pose-Down rules, Bonnar would actually have a chance. / Photo via MMAFighting.com, click for full-size image.)

– Cops: Jeremy Stephens’ Alleged Victim Beaten Unconscious, Stopped Breathing Twice (MMAFighting)

– UFC 153: Bonnar vs. Silva, Tex Cobb vs. Larry Holmes and Courage Through Standing in Front of a Locomotive (BloodyElbow)

– Erick Silva Talks Twilight Series, Fighting Jon Fitch (HeavyMMA)

– Jon Fitch: Getting Title Shots Is A ‘Popularity Contest’ (Fightline)

– VADA Offers Drug Testing for TUF Finale Main Event, Carwin’s Camp Says That’s News to Them (MMAWeekly)

– Bellator 76’s Rad Martinez Out to Prove He’s no ‘Charity Case’ (MMAJunkie)

– Emily Ratajkowski Gets Saucy with Sara Underwood in Carl’s Jr Ad (MensFitness)

– 30 Hilarious Animal Photobombs (Complex)

– The Ultimate Faceplants Compilation (WorldWideInterweb)

– Chefs of Anarchy: New York’s Best Fries (MadeMan)

– Christopher Walken Reads “Honey Boo Boo” (ScreenJunkies)

– Russian Soldiers Flee Exploding Ammunition Stockpiles (EgoTV)

– B*tch, Get Off My Bus: Uppercut Edition (WorldStar, Baby)


(If only the fight were held under West Coast Pose-Down rules, Bonnar would actually have a chance. / Photo via MMAFighting.com, click for full-size image.)

– Cops: Jeremy Stephens’ Alleged Victim Beaten Unconscious, Stopped Breathing Twice (MMAFighting)

– UFC 153: Bonnar vs. Silva, Tex Cobb vs. Larry Holmes and Courage Through Standing in Front of a Locomotive (BloodyElbow)

– Erick Silva Talks Twilight Series, Fighting Jon Fitch (HeavyMMA)

– Jon Fitch: Getting Title Shots Is A ‘Popularity Contest’ (Fightline)

– VADA Offers Drug Testing for TUF Finale Main Event, Carwin’s Camp Says That’s News to Them (MMAWeekly)

– Bellator 76′s Rad Martinez Out to Prove He’s no ‘Charity Case’ (MMAJunkie)

– Emily Ratajkowski Gets Saucy with Sara Underwood in Carl’s Jr Ad (MensFitness)

– 30 Hilarious Animal Photobombs (Complex)

– The Ultimate Faceplants Compilation (WorldWideInterweb)

– Chefs of Anarchy: New York’s Best Fries (MadeMan)

– Christopher Walken Reads “Honey Boo Boo” (ScreenJunkies)

– Russian Soldiers Flee Exploding Ammunition Stockpiles (EgoTV)

– B*tch, Get Off My Bus: Uppercut Edition (WorldStar, Baby)