And Then There Were Four...
by Zak Woods on Mar 29, 2010 12:01 PM EDT
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The UFC heavyweight division while never deeper is slowly contracting to smaller nucleus. Randy Couture yielded late last year and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira bowed out in Australia at UFC 110. At UFC 111 Frank Mir was the latest heavyweight to exit stage "punched in the face" from title contention.
If there was any doubt before it is now completely gone: Shane Carwin, Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos are the four best heavyweights in the UFC.
Astute observers realized this reality months ago and certainly Joe Silva and Dana White knew the truth as well; as they have carefully groomed each prospect (all four are "young" MMA fighters) into top contenders. Yet, that doesn't mean all four will fight immediately.
The UFC followed through with the expected announcement of Shane Carwin vs. Brock Lesnar at UFC 116 on July 3rd. The fight will represent an interesting physical challenge for Lesnar who is still recovering from his bout with diverticulitis --Lesnar looked noticeably slim on Thursday at the THQ media event-- plus, for the first time, he will be fighting an opponent of equal size and strength; an advantage Brock has had in every fight in his short UFC career.
For fans clamoring for a Velasquez-dos Santos fight that match-up was never a realistic possibility as the fine folks at Zuffa know that their heavyweight division is now all about the big four (WKR really wants to call them the Four Horsemen--WOOOO!!!!). In that vein, Dana White confirmed that Cain Velasquez will get the winner of Lesnar-Carwin and if Roy Nelson is triumphant at Fight Night 21 then Junior dos Santos will fight "Big Country" (WKR believes that Cheick Kongo may be an alternative if Nelson loses to Stefan Struve).
Will UFC 111 go down as the page turn for the UFC's heavyweight division? Perhaps, but WKR believes that process began over a year ago. Instead, UFC 111 may be seen as the realization that the top tier of the heavyweight division is the "Four Horsemen".
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I wouldnt go as far as saying Carwin is of equal size and strength.
Not a knock on Carwin though, because Brock is simply a genetic freak
Hmmm where'd you get the part about Dos Santos/Nelson? :-)
http://twitter.com/JeremyHeavyMMA/status/11183654464
Just sayin. :-)
It was nice to finally meet you in person at the THQ thing. You going to Nashville for Strikeforce?
Heavy.com -- Lead Staff Writer
Houston Chronicle's Brawl Sports
The Best Fighting The Best
For the most part the UFC tries to make their best to make it happen BUT . . . avoiding Velasquez versus Dos Santos to set up Velasquez versus the winner of Lesnar-Carwin is wack. Velasquez is basically being put on the waiting list for a couple of months just so they don’t risk a loss for either Dos Santos or Velasquez.
"There's nothing cool about taking punishment" - Floyd Mayweather Jr.
they could feed him another lower ranked dude...
or just use him to teach James Toney a much needed lesson.
by some schmuck in texas on Mar 29, 2010 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions
We should all know the reason Brock's up there
if you don’t know it oh well. Let’s face fact, brock’s only advantage is his wrestling, I would also add size and power, but he doesn’t know how to use it to his advantage like shane. He has the least skills out of all three granted the man hasn’t been in the game as long as the others, but regardless he only has wrestling. So, I’ll take shane as the New HWC and will perhaps remain undefeated for a while as Cain and Junior are way smaller with a lot less power than shane or brock and will get manhandled in a grappling match. I like Cain, big fan, but cain hasn’t fought a monster like shane. However, it’ll be safe to say that both Cain and Junior have more skills than either shane or brock, but size and power will over come sill and shane proved it with mir.
Brock’s ground and pound and the way he’s integrated it with his wrestling is hellish, and is a definite advantage. Also where on earth are you getting that he doesn’t know how to you his power to his advantage like Carwin does? Not to mention the fact his submission defense is supposedly quite good now. Carwin is not going to be able to pin Lesnar against the fence like he did to Mir, nor is he going to be able to easily take him down. Lesnar having an advantage in wrestling and strength is all he really needs. I’m not saying Carwin isn’t a serious threat but I would not consider him the favorite here.
Also, as far as Junior having more skills than Lesnar or Carwin, he have fists made of dynamite, but his ground game is still a huge question mark. And I absolutely love JDS and respect that he’s had to TKO five quality guys in a row to get a title shot (and apparently will still have to beat one more).
Yeah, his gnp is alright, but not as devasting as shane’s. The reason why I said that he doesn’t know how to put his power to his advantage is because he doesn’t put a lot of power behind his punches even his gnp, granted he might use his size to control the fighters. The punching power’s not at full blast. Let’s take for example, brock vs mir and shane vs mir, both used their size to get mir where they wanted, brock got rocked by a flying knee and I must say that he doesn’t like to stand and trade. The fake wwe punches don’t compare to real ones I assume. He took mir down implemented his gnp which reminded me a lil bit to cain vs kongo, where cain must’ve thrown over a 100 punches. There wasn’t much power at least not the power that he can unleash, granted the fight was stopped and well, we all saw what shane did to mir, he dropped him and unleashed some bombs and it was all over. So that is what I based my assumption on, also let’s not forget brocks previous fights.
As far as the fight, we can only assume, but it won’t be until July when we’ll finally get to see. I don’t know, but brock looked big next to shane when they were in the octogon after the fight. All, I’m saying is brock has the potential for a one hit KO/tko with bigger fighters like he did against randy who is now a LHW… Shane’s going to connect and it’ll be all over and he’ll be the New HWC of the world.
Big fan of JDS too, yeah his ground game’s still questionable, but both Cain and JDS are small compared to brock and shane and will get ko’d if one of shane’s punches connects. JDS isn’t even 240 while Cain is barely 240 lbs compared to the two monsters who have to drop weight in order to make weight.
Maybe I'm the only one
but with continuing influx of NCAA wrestling HW talent I can’t see Mir ever being more than a gatekeeper. They are his kryptonite, and Brock/Shane/Cain aren’t gonna be the last of them.
"It’s going to be like sex with a grizzly bear, you know, a lot of scratching and growling on both sides." - Don Frye
excelsior is brilliant
yea you lost all credibility when you said GSP could have broke Hardys arm but didn’t because hes not Frank Mir, so kudos to you for being idiotic on that post and this one
just to remind you Mir beat Brock
and as for Brock and Carwin being Mir’s Kryptonite, they were at one time a division I and division II wrestling champion. . . . . so that means they are a lot of fighters kryptonite
for Mir being a gatekeeper, Eddie Sanchez is a Gatekeeper, Mustapha al Turk is a gatekeeper, Frank Mir is an ex heavyweight Champion and a legitimate threat to anyone on the ground.
by jackmerridew on Mar 29, 2010 7:53 PM EDT up reply actions
He caught Brock with a kneebar in his second pro fight
if they fought 100 more times I doubt Frank would win 5. Same for Carwin, and Cain…
you can disagree with my opinion or play semantics all you want, but the fact remains that Mir gets out muscled and until he can hold his own in the clinch and defend big wrestler’s takedowns, I can’t see him being champ again any time soon. And right now there are 3 big powerful wrestlers in the UFC HW division… what about in another 4 years when there’s five or six more. Sure, I guess gatekeeper is a little too strong; what would you have me call a guy who is upper echelon but just can’t get it done when it matters?
He will probably fight JDS next, and I really don’t see him winning because he will want to stand a bang. If he loses he will be 1-3 is his last 4, and will probably face Cain (or Carwin or Lesnar, depending on how the next two title fights go) and I don’t expect him to win against either of those 3. So he could presumably be 1-5 of his last 6. Where does that leave him? Gatekeeper?
"It’s going to be like sex with a grizzly bear, you know, a lot of scratching and growling on both sides." - Don Frye
In a perfet world
Cain-JDS would happen, but I completely understand why it doesn’t. This division is awesome and finally on par w/ some of the lighter divisions.
Hadoken!!
the ufc hw division has never looked stronger but they have definitly seperated themsleves from the rest...
I get my ass kicked for money, all you gotta do is talk motherfucker.... Rampage Pride GP03
