Question for Beebs

If Carwin is to pace himself more then he does not look as devastating nor does he produce such a dominant first round. This coupled with the fact that Brock (unless a moron) will work more on his stand up, change his gameplan to avoid the strikes more and learn to fight/defend off his back more.

 

Let him stand up. Carwin is an accomplished wrestler who had Lesnar is an incredibly vulnerable position and was pounding him out. He did land big shots but didn't put him out.

If he was to let the fight stand up every time it went down then Carwin is suspect to a big shot (Gonzaga) and to being taken down himself.

You are just thinking of eventualities to help Carwin to victory but fights aren't like that. Fighters have a game plan to execute and there will ALWAYS be some freestyle involved.

 

Thats not true. A million fights are stopped from a guy dropping BOMBS on a downed opponent. Carwin still had decent leverage. Letting a guy get up gives him time to recover. Hindsight does make things easy.

 

Like I said - freestyle. Carwin had to make a split second judgement call. If Brock lands a big right, I still think Carwin could be put on ***** street. The risk works both ways.

 

Wounded tiger - no matter how hurt, if Carwin keeps it standing he is open to a shot just like Gonzaga was for him. The position Brock was in poised no worry to Carwin as his BJJ sucks and he had no striking power off his back.

 

I think Lesnar loses to the next guy who he stands with for more then the first 30 seconds of a round. Lesnar has atrocious stand-up and by the looks of things is not as confident in his own chin as he should be. Not a good combo for a stand-up fight.

 

I don't think Brock was THAT HURT but mentally I would be intrigued to see if he was confused at Carwins request. However I think he would look to shoot immediately like he did at the start of the second round and like he pinned Carwin as soon as he stood up.

 

The main factor has to be Lesnar's illness. He had been very sick, lost a lot of weight, missed a lot of training time and came into the cage that night with a year's worth of ring rust. If ever you wanted to beat Brock Lesnar, UFC 116 was the time to do it. But Brock won.

Carwin was able to impose his gameplan, and still lost. He stopped the early takedown, hurt Lesnar standing and then attacked with ground and pound. It's hard to imagine how it could have gone much better for him, but as we all saw he gassed badly (in the first round of a five round fight) and had nothing left in the second. Cardio doesn't usually improve with age, and Carwin is already 35.

While Lesnar may have looked absurd getting smashed standing, running away and flailing off his back, he gutted it out and managed to survive. In the second round Carwin was defeated without much resistance. In a rematch there is additional pressure on the fighter who lost the first time and I imagine that the manner of the loss will increase that pressure. Some fighters find the first loss particularly hard to deal with, though I think Carwin will suck it up like a professional and be able to maintain his form.

Training is another issue. Lesnar will be training his stand-up like a maniac after the first fight, he and his coaches know it's a weakness and needs to improve. Now you may think that Carwin will be training just as hard to improve his game and the two will cancel each other out, but I think that Brock has several advantages in this respect.

As I have mentioned, Carwin is an older man than Lesnar and there are at least two challengers ahead of him in the division. He will be at least 36 by the time he gets another shot and possibly older. In addition, he still works part-time as a hydraulic engineer, while Lesnar has $100,000 training camps with some of the best coaches in the game. Not to mention Brock is sparring with professional mixed martial arts fighters in the Carwin mould: big, powerful wrestlers like Chris Tuchsherer (18-3, 1 NC), Cole Konrad (4-0), Kirk Klosowsky (1-0) and Lance Anderson (3-0). Brock has more time and resources than Carwin, so his rate of improvement will be faster.

So, for these reasons I think Carwin will not get a better chance to beat Lesnar than the one he had at UFC 116. I'm not saying that Carwin couldn't win a rematch because he certainly could, but in the first fight he had the deck stacked in his favour and he still lost. Without these advantages, I think he'll find the rematch tougher and my money would be on another Brock Lesnar victory.