SBN MMA Interview With UFC Vet And TUF Alum Justin Wren

Justin tells me all about training with Shane Carwin at the Grudge Training Center, his thoughts on the state of the heavyweight division, and what he thinks about professional wrestlers wanting to fight in MMA.

How do you like training at Grudge with fighters like Shane Carwin, Brendan Schaub, Nate Marquardt, and Rashad Evans?

Yea, I honestly couldn't see myself being a part of any other camp. We've got too good of a thing going on at Grudge Training Center. Our trainers are the best, our training partners are the best. I'm very lucky and very blessed to be a part of it. The elevation is another huge advantage out in Colorado. I actually live at 8,800ft elevation on top of a mountain overlooking downtown Denver. I come down to 5,280ft to train. You come down here to Miami, hitting mitts and sparring, and I feel like I can go all day. I also have an altitude simulator for back at sea level to maintain that advantage for as long as possible. I just put my mouth up to a thing for an hour a day and it simulates my air as if I were at 20,000ft for the day. I'm using it to improve my cardio, it can be a heavyweight's strongest weapon. It's one of the most important things in MMA. All the best technique in the world doesn't mean anything if you can't put it into action once you hit the second round.

You're a training partner of Shane Carwin's. What do you think about the way people have criticized his cardio coming into the second round of his fight with Brock Lesnar?

Shane was definitely in shape for that fight. It was just a lot of different things going into it. It was his first fight to go to the second round, he almost finished it earlier in the fight, and he spent a ton of energy trying to finish it. I'm not trying to be biased, but I think eight out of ten refs would have stopped it in the first round. It was a great job by Brock to come back, but I think that if it had been stopped not many people would have complained. That's also a testament to Brock being the champion, being able to fight through that.

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