UFC 116 discussion/matchups

[Luke]

Have to agree with zY here(believe Me, that wasn't easy to type).

[Luke]

Have to agree with zY here(believe Me, that wasn't easy to type). Lesnar takes one of the most brutal beatings I've EVER seen a fighter take in the first round without having the contest stopped and comes back like it never happened and then shocks the world by winning the fight via submission, and this douche actually thinks he should be ranked 4th behind Carwin still? This whole argument about "if Carwin hadn't gassed he would have won" means jack shit because he did gas out. If the ref hadn't stopped the action Lesnar would have never lost to Mir and he'd be undefeated right now. But we don't live in a pretend world of good intentions where if's are reality.

No one should be trying to take anything away from Lesnar's win last night. He just got off a 51 week hiatus and a bout of Diverticulitis to take on a guy who is just about at big as he is, easily as powerful, and a better striker with comparable wrestling skills. He took a horrid beating the likes of which he has never seen before and was dominated to a clear cut 10-8 round with absolutely no question at all and turned it around showing that he not only had a hell of a chin, but a LOT of heart. It isn't Lesnars fault or doing that Carwin punched himself out and didn't train for/didn't fight for a fight that went past the first round.

I agree .I have alot more respect for Lesnar than I did before that fight. Lesnar got hit with some huge shots ,shots that would have KO'd anyone else and held on long enough to recover. Gonzaga got KTFO by a shot just like Lesnar took and Mir got pounded out .

He was coming off a year layoff and an illness and still took everything Carwin threw.

Whether Carwin gasses in the very begining or the second round or not Lesnar was going to win the fight imo, he had already took everything Carwin could throw and kept coming. Either way Carwin would have got slower and slower in rounds 3,4 and 5 to the point Lesnar would have beat him .

I really want to know if Lesnar can go a full 5 rounds at a fast pace

[Luke]

Those people at bloodyelbow are complete morons .I was on Lesnar and agree the first round was a 10-8 round but 10-7 ? Come on

Our own Luke Thomas scored the round 10-7 for Carwin in the Bloody Elbow live blog

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[zY|]

Those people at bloodyelbow are complete morons .I was on Lesnar and agree the first round was a 10-8 round but 10-7 ? Come on

Our own Luke Thomas scored the round 10-7 for Carwin in the Bloody Elbow live blog

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Haha it was close.

Fightmetric has the extent of the asskicking.

http://www.fightmetric.com/fights/Lesnar-Carwin.html

What a blowout round.

[Ludo]

It's very well possible it may have been a 10-7 round, that was the most clear cut 10-8 round I have ever seen in all My time watching MMA.

[zY|]

It's very well possible it may have been a 10-7 round, that was the most clear cut 10-8 round I have ever seen in all My time watching MMA.

Yet Glenn Trowbridge still scored it 10-9.

[Svino]

Well, it's interesting to see the diversity of opinion on this fight. There are a lot of fights that improve my opinion of both fighters, this wasn't one of them. I'm not trying to be a jerk pissing on fighters accomplishments, just coming from this as a gambler trying to figure out what to take away.

If the ref hadn't stopped the action Lesnar would have never lost to Mir and he'd be undefeated right now. But we don't live in a pretend world of good intentions where if's are reality.

Again, thinking as gamblers, I'd say it's kind of our job to go after the "what if's". We need to be able to extract more information from the fight than just the outcome if we want to be successful. The Mir / Lesnar I fight that you bring up is a perfect example. Someone who watched that, and only took away "Mir > Lesnar" would have been pretty damn shocked at the second fight, but you could clearly see the seeds for Lesnar's future domination were there. The kneebar was an event that, while certainly tied to the fighter's strengths and weaknesses, was also a little flukish.

In the same way, it is very rare for a fight to spend so long in the verge of being stopped. If the ref keeps threatening to stop the fight, the right move is to flurry and try to finish, no matter how tired you are getting. Carwin was doing the right thing. Of course, it is to his discredit and Lesnar's credit that Carwin wasn't able to get the fight stopped, but that drawn-out sequence that caused Carwin to gas out early isn't something you would expect to see. Before the fight, the main arguments for Lesnar were that he could win the standup with better speed and technical striking, and that he could take down Carwin and GnP him. I'd say both of those have been shot down. Sure, Lesnar could get better, but so could Carwin and Cain. They're all newish to the sport.

Ultimately, I see "Carwin's stamina" as analogous to "Lesnar's submission defense" when comparing this fight to the first Mir / Lesnar. And accordingly, I would probably bet on a rematch to go in the opposite way.

And finally, on the subject of heart: I never want to bet on a fighter that everyone says has "heart". "That fighter has heart" is a euphemism for "that fighter is getting the crap beaten out of him". No one ever says Anderson Silva and GSP have "heart". Dan Hardy? Sure. But not GSP.

On another note, Chris Leben vs Yoshihiro Akiyama should be a candidate for Fight of the Year honors. That shit was crazy.

Yeah, I second this. Glad they got FotN, even if Leben didn't get the submission bonus.

Luke, as for guys calling the round 10-7, I think anyone who calls 10-7 rounds is basically just admitting that they use a completely different scale than actual MMA judges. It won't actually happen except for really crazy circumstances.

[Ludo]

Heart isn't strictly used as a synonym for "he got his ass beat". GSP is often credited for having "the heart of a champion" with the way he came back from the flash KO Serra nailed him with to not only beat Serra in the rematch, but totally destroying him with relative ease. This is a combat sport and it takes courage to get back out there when you've lost in devastating fashion/being beaten in devastating fashion. Brock had the courage/heart to get out there in round two and keep at his game plan and ultimately win the fight. Nevermind the fact that he took all those shots that would have probably rendered anyone else close to comatose, the fact that Brock went back out and stuck to his guns despite having been brutalized for probably the first time in his adult life and handled his first "real" test of his mental toughness in a way that has probably earned alot of people's respect.

Another fighter who showed heart in a different way was Akiyama. He was so exhausted he could barely sit upright on his stool between rounds two and three and he went back out there anyway against someone he knew was fresher and the better striker who could potentially knock him out. It takes a certain courage to step back out there and go out on your shield when there is seemingly little to no hope in sight. This is what I meant by heart. The mental strength not to give up when all seems lost(like Akiyama), the courage to go back out there and risk getting manhandled again(like Brock).

[AC88]

Lesnar isn't getting any worse in his standup technique either. He's still only 6 fights into his career. He could also employ a less aggressive style and it would likely give Carwin more trouble. He only got hurt when he lunged in for a punch and got countered. If he sat back and let Carwin do the charging in he could likely get a counter of his own or change levels for a takedown.

I don't see Lesnar picking up the striking skills to compete with Carwin on the feet even a few months from now. Even if he's only 6 fights in his career he still has more cage/ring time than Carwin. The point is Carwin completely embarassed Brock on the feet and it wouldn't have looked much different even if Carwin dropped 10 or 20 pounds to gain more cardio.

[Mr. IWS]

I feel really dirty for saying this, but I actually agree with the piece Snowden wrote over at Bloody Elbow:

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2010/7/4/155 ... lesnar-and

Question: I know Nog has been in some rough spots, as has Fedor, but has any champion ever lost a full 10-8 round before? (not counting stoppages)

After seeing Lesnar demolish Mir, I was starting to wonder if he was the best fighter in the world, even if he hadn't yet truly proven himself as such. After last night, I'd be hard pressed to rank him higher than 4th in terms of pure ability, after Fedor, Cain, and Carwin in some order. (And can you just imagine how badly Overeem would murder Brock in the standup?) His victory in the second round looked like it had more to do with Carwin falling apart than anything else. Admittedly, Brock's ability to show us something new in each fight was continued with his arm-triangle finish.

This fight contains another lesson for us: Remember how Lesnar was going to fight Southpaw? Remember how Carwin's best round is the 5th? Believe nothing you hear from guys' training camps before a fight, no matter how tempting it is to listen to it. If you're getting useful betting information, someone is screwing up.

Actually, I partially believe Carwin's excuse, in the sense that if he hadn't punched himself out, I'm sure he could have gone for a lot longer. But the fact that there is a physical tradeoff in terms of muscle mass vs. endurance raises an interesting question: is it even the best strategy to plan to go for 5 rounds? I mean, I wasn't even slightly reassured by the realization that Carwin had just won the first round by 2 points, because there was no way the fight was going the distance. Maybe sacrificing stamina for extra power in the first 5-10 minutes is a viable strategy; maybe heavyweights should be front-loading.

Haters gonna hate.

Brock gets the shit beat out of him for 3 minutes, and when the round ends, he is pushing Carwin up against the cage working a takedown. This guy needs to cover hot dog eating contests instead of MMA.

[Mr. IWS]

So where does Carwin go from here? Who does he fight next? JDS/Nelson loser maybe?

[Luke]

So where does Carwin go from here? Who does he fight next? JDS/Nelson loser maybe?

That would be my guess or Kongo

[zY|]

So where does Carwin go from here? Who does he fight next? JDS/Nelson loser maybe?

That would be my guess or Kongo

Kongo is fighting Travis Browne at 120.

Although Carwin/Kongo would be a fun fight. I think Carwin overwhelms him though.

[Svino]

It's cool; I get it now: Getting your ass beat in a fight is much more impressive than not getting your ass beat, because it shows your "heart" and your "chin". Makes perfect sense. So we're all on Russow to beat Duffee in a rematch, right?

Speaking of which, that might be the answer to the "What's next for Carwin?" question.

The UFC loves to match losers with losers and winners with winners so much that I think, depending on the length of layoff Carwin is going to have, he will either get Duffee or the loser of JDS / Nelson. You can just barely imagine him getting someone on their way up, like Rothwell, Russow, or Kongo if he wins, but I doubt it.

[Luke]

It's cool; I get it now: Getting your ass beat in a fight is much more impressive than not getting your ass beat, because it shows your "heart" and your "chin". Makes perfect sense. So we're all on Russow to beat Duffee in a rematch, right?

Taking a beating that no one else in the UFC could have took and coming back to win the fight IS much more impresive than gassing out in the first round of a 5 round fight

[Svino]

It's cool; I get it now: Getting your ass beat in a fight is much more impressive than not getting your ass beat, because it shows your "heart" and your "chin". Makes perfect sense. So we're all on Russow to beat Duffee in a rematch, right?

Taking a beating that no one else in the UFC could have took and coming back to win the fight IS much more impresive than gassing out in the first round of a 5 round fight

Yeah, I'm not saying Carwin blew me away either. He's got problems to address, no doubt.

[Luke]

Yeah, I'm not saying Carwin blew me away either. He's got problems to address, no doubt.

I wonder if nerves had to do with him gassing or he just really cant go more than a round

[SPX]

I wonder if nerves had to do with him gassing or he just really cant go more than a round

I think he just can't do it. We all knew that was a possibility.

The question is whether or not he'll address that problem and fix it or if he's going to continue to be the guy who's good for one round and no more.

[Svino]

Someone above mentioned Carwin possibly cutting down to 250 or so. He has fought in the 250's before. Of course, we don't know if his cardio was much better then or not.

[Luke]

I wonder if nerves had to do with him gassing or he just really cant go more than a round

I think he just can't do it. We all knew that was a possibility.

The question is whether or not he'll address that problem and fix it or if he's going to continue to be the guy who's good for one round and no more.

Well I was planning on him gassing when I made my bet but I was expecting it to happen in round 3 or 4 not round 1