Back in March of this year, many fans of the heavyweight division in the mixed martial arts promotion known as the Ultimate Fighting Championship got their first look at a potential future champion.
It was the UFC's 96th event, and emerging from the sport's subpar organizations came a brand new virtual human wrecking-machine.
His name? Shane Bannister Carwin. The 6'3", 260-pound bone-crusher had honed his skills by fighting in cage-fighting promotions with dubious titles such as "Ultimate Texas Showdown" and "Art of War."
Carwin, however, had been "throwing bricks" and racked up 10 straight victories, three of them being consecutive first-round knockouts and none of them lasting any longer than the first round, heading into his March 7 bout at UFC 96.
On this night, the stage was set for him to prove to the world whether his power was real, or merely a byproduct of the competition he had been used to facing.
Carwin was in tough on this night, however; staring him down across the cage was none other than former No. 1 contender Gabriel Gonzaga, a man who had devastated the combat sports world by knocking out the always dangerous Croatian heavyweight Mirko "Crocop" Filipovic with a paralyzing head kick.
Gonzaga (10-3, 4 KOs) and his equally dangerous opponent Carwin wasted very little time in getting to the job at hand, showing zero regard for defense—and a genuine lack of respect for each other's power. The two heavyweight gladiators then squared off at center-cage and immediately began throwing bombs.
Right away, Carwin received the brunt of two consecutive lead right hands from Gonzaga, which buckled the knees of the UFC newcomer, sending the two fighters reeling backwards, crashing into the cage.
Similar to any of nature's predatory beasts, sensing his prey has just been wounded, the Brazilian native Gonzaga—who is also a nlack belt in Jiu-Jitsu—went straight for the proverbial jugular, attempting to end the fight.
Carwin, undoubtedly stunned and hurt, then received more damage from an elbow after being taken to the ground by Gonzaga; amazingly, however, like a true soldier, he managed to regain control over his legs.
Showing the stuff champions are made of, Carwin stood up squarely and threw a left jab into his opponent's face, momentarily stopping the onslaught of Gonzaga.
My background is in boxing, and in that sport there is a proverb which—most times—holds true. That is, "the right hand will always find the left," meaning that wherever the left fist strikes, the right will arrive in the same vicinity shortly thereafter.
In this contest between Carwin and Gonzaga, the "old adage" held true once again, as Carwin followed his hard left jab with a perfect straight right to Gonzaga's jaw.
The legs of the big Brazilian MMA fighter then turned to rubber, becoming unhinged from his brain, and he crumpled to the canvas like a discarded dinner napkin.
This huge knockout win over Gonzaga instantly catapulted Carwin into the top five of the UFC's heavyweight division.
The win also allowed Carwin to put an exclamation mark on his statement to the rest of the heavyweight division...he had arrived!
All roads lead to one man, however, so, for an encore, Carwin has now crashed head-on into arguably one of the most controversial and terrifying heavyweight maulers in MMA history, Brock Lesnar.
Lesnar's background is in collegiate wrestling, and he's also a superstar of what could be called "dramatic wrestling," in the WWE; as a result, he has a tendency to employ tactics not usually seen in MMA.
The mammoth-sized Lesnar is listed at 6'3", but standing beside his last opponent, Frank Mir, he looked to be closer to 6'5"; add that factor to his gigantic 300-pound girth and we can understand why he prefers to to subdue his opponents by simply laying on them.
On paper, this matchup looks like a UFC setup with Carwin being "thrown to lions" much too soon in his career. Certainly, if it weren't for Carwin's punching power, we could easily write him off here.
However, with further inspection, we see that Lesnar actually has less MMA experience, and has already been submitted once in his short but ongoing five-fight career.
With the fighters in a vertical position, throwing haymakers, I'd put my money on Carwin. On the canvas, however, we would most likely see a dominant performance from an amazingly athletic and naturally gifted wrestler.
These two behemoths—Carwin, a native of Greeley, Colo., and Lesnar, from St. Paul, Minn.—engage in battle for the UFC undisputed heavyweight crown at UFC 106 on Nov. 21, 2009.
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