Human juggernaut Brock Lesnar makes his eagerly awaited return to the Octagon this Saturday night, when he battles fellow colossus and interim champion Shane Carwin. On paper, it promises to be a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ collision of novelty-sized athletes with destructive KO power.
Heavyweight champ Lesnar has not fought in a year, since contracting the life-threatening intestinal disorder diverticulitis. For a time, it was unclear whether he’d ever fight again. “This is kind of my second coming,†said Lesnar with typical brashness.
Ring rust, and how much (if anything) the illness has taken from him could well determine Saturday’s outcome. If Lesnar isn’t firing on all cylinders, he’s undoubtedly in for a short night. Not one of Carwin’s 12 opponents have made it out of the first round. All were brutally KO’d, including former champion Frank Mir and contender Gabriel Gonzaga.
But if there’s one fighter on the planet who can match up to Carwin’s freakish size and power, it’s Brock Lesnar. Indeed, on paper, the former WWE superstar appears a slightly bigger, slightly better version of his opponent: Carwin was a division 2 NCAA wrestling champion; Lesnar, a division 1 champion. Both men will weigh-in at the 265 pound limit, but at 6 feet 4 inches, Lesnar will enjoy a height and reach advantage over his 6 feet 2 inch foe.
Experience
Experience could also play a part. Neither man has it in abundance (Lesnar holds a threadbare résumé of 5 fights to Carwin’s 12), but Lesnar has arguably been taken into deeper waters, having fought beyond the first round on three occasions.
Cardio is always a question that hangs over heavyweights. The burden on the heart as it struggles to oxygenate oversized muscles can wilt a fighter alarmingly early. How either man would fare over 5 rounds is anyone’s guess, though Lesnar definitively answered the question of 3 rounds when he maintained a high tempo in a lopsided decision victory over Heath Herring. In that respect, Carwin is a victim of his own brutal KO power: the bell for round two has never rung in a Shane Carwin fight.
Not that his trainer Greg Jackson is concerned. “One thing I see Shane do at the gym, he goes five rounds like it’s nothing,†said the famed New Mexican strategist. Jackson will know though, that it’s one thing to expend energy steadily in the gym, and another to avoid the sapping adrenalin dumps that can occur in front of a baying crowd, when a hulk like Brock Lesnar is bearing down with bad intentions.
All questions will be answered come Saturday, but whether it lasts five rounds or five seconds, there is, and always will be something uniquely exciting about watching elite heavyweights go toe-to-toe.
