The wait is finally over. After a long roller coaster ride that has spanned nearly six months of schedule changes, injuries, and Brock Lesnar‘s unfortunate diagnosis of diverticulitis, the upper-tier of the UFC’s heavyweight division will finally begin to move in a direction that should certainly please the fans, the fighters, and Dana White. Saturday night marks the beginning of what could potentially become a huge year in terms of profits and quality match-ups in the division as heavy-handed wrestler Shane Carwin (11-0, 3-0 UFC) takes on former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir (13-4, 11-4 UFC) in a contest to determine the UFC’s Interim Heavyweight champion. More importantly, the winner will be given the chance to battle Brock Lesnar in an unification bout.
Mir is coming off a quick victory over Cheick Kongo at UFC 107 in which he submitted the French-born fighter in just 1:12 of the first round. The match-up was Mir’s return to the Octagon following the bloody beatdown he took at the hands of the UFC’s current champion Brock Lesnar at UFC 100, and a win for Mir on Saturday will solidify the third and final installment between the two enemies.
Carwin enters this contest as somewhat unproven against top-tier competition. While he defeated Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 96 with a short jab that was surprisingly heavy enough to knock out the Brazilian, many fans have pointed out that Gonzaga looked solid against Carwin before the “touch”. Those fans would be right, but this sport still has one factor that laughs in the face of meticulous analysis of styles and tactics — the unpredictability of the knockout. Carwin possesses the knack for knockouts, and a “touch” from his powerful hands could end a fighter’s night quickly.
Styles make fights, and the storyline that’s being created by Frank Mir himself is that Carwin is a better version of Brock Lesnar. If you were completely oblivious as to who Shane Carwin or Brock Lesnar were or living under a rock for the last few years, I’d think somebody might actually buy into those statements. The truth is that Shane Carwin’s only proven advantage in this fight is his uncanny ability to put opponents to sleep.
Carwin’s 6’2″, 265 pound frame should offer some assistance in trying to stifle Mir’s attempts to take him down, but Mir has never been a conventional “shoot at the hips” type of grappler. If that were the case, Carwin may have opportunities to catch Mir coming in, but Mir normally works for a clinch or quickly transitions on a leg to put his opponents on the defensive.
Furthermore, Mir may be able to finally show that his weeks and weeks of weight training are putting a huge dent in the gap between himself and guys like Lesnar and Carwin in terms of power and strength. Sure, strength won’t stop Carwin’s fist from caving in Mir’s conscious mind, but it should put a stop to those situations in which Mir is lying helplessly while someone beats their fist into his face.
On the feet, I still don’t think Carwin has an edge as far as technical striking goes. Even in recent video of sparring sessions, Carwin still seems fairly robotic and rigid in my opinion, and fluid strikers like Cain Velasquez could have a field day on Carwin’s chin. Mir isn’t exactly the most fluid striker, but he has improved to the point where I don’t consider him robotic. From a technical standpoint, I’d think he’d have the edge in this area of the fight as well.
Unfortunately, the technical aspects of striking in mixed martial arts won’t matter if Carwin happens to clip Mir with a heavy strike. So, this really becomes a question as to what type of gameplan will Mir implement?
Frank Mir should defeat Shane Carwin on Saturday night. The only real edge Carwin has relies on a factor in combative sports that can’t be correlated to a hard number or coefficient. It just happens. More times than not, that factor loses out to the much more technical grappler or striker. Carwin has a shot with his hands, but Mir should dominate him on the floor on his way to a rubber match with his nemesis Brock Lesnar.