Shane Carwin Is Ready For The Biggest Moment Of His Career

Photo by James Law for Heavy.com

LAS VEGAS — Shane Carwin is just days away from the biggest moment of his fighting career, but to hear him tell it, nothing has really changed.

“I’m still an average guy. I’ve worked hard since I was fifteen years old. I worked construction for fifteen years to help myself get through college and life,” Carwin says. “I’ve been where these fans are, and I still am. So nothing has changed in that way, and nothing will ever change. I looked over at my wife the other day and said ‘do you realize you’re married to one of the baddest men on the planet?’ She wasn’t impressed.”

Carwin’s wife Lani may not have been impressed by his posturing, but his brutal string of knockouts have earned him a legion of fans, many of whom have been extremely vocal in their desire to see Carwin knock Brock Lesnar off his lofty pedestal. Despite several first-round knockouts, Carwin was a virtual unknown, but his destruction of Frank Mir in March loudly announced his presence to the MMA community and turned him, almost overnight, into a budding superstar.

“I’m overwhelmed by it. It’s still crazy to me that people want my autograph,” he says. “I’m able to do what I love. I’m very fortunate and God has blessed me. Football didn’t work out for me, but there’s a reason for that and God has a plan for us all.”

Carwin, who meets Lesnar for the UFC heavyweight championship on Saturday night at UFC 116, is an aberration in the world of mixed martial arts. Many fighters enjoy plenty of leisure time when they aren’t training, playing video games or taking extended vacations. Carwin uses his time to make a contribution to society, holding down a job as an engineer in his hometown of Greeley, Colorado. It keeps him grounded and it serves as a connection point to the fans who pay hard-earned money to see him fight. He’s an everyman, someone the fans can relate to, and he spends copious amounts of time interacting directly with fans on his official website and via his Twitter account.

His team at Grudge Training Center is another connection to the real world, he says. “We’ve created a team. It’s a family there in Colorado. If you look around, guys don’t come there and then leave. They come and they stay. And there’s a reason for that,” he says. “It’s because we all depend on each other. We’re there to support each other. I had that in college with my wrestling teams and my football teams, and any time we were tight like that, we had very successful teams.”

Carwin’s success on Saturday night likely hinges on his ability to land a power shot to Lesnar’s chin. While Lesnar’s wrestling pedigree and raw strength gives him an advantage on the ground, Carwin’s standup game is far more polished and technical, and he says he hopes to put that boxing game to good use.

“I hope to put him on his back early in the fight, to get that knockout. If you put any of the top ten heavyweights against each other, I think anything can happen. That’s what people love about the sport,” Carwin says. “There’s very little room for error. Anything can happen. And going in, I understand that and I recognize it. I think that allows me to fight more freely.”

More than one million people are expected to purchase the pay per view, and it will almost assuredly be the biggest UFC event of the year. Lesnar’s polarizing image will ensure that even mainstream outlets like ESPN will provide heavy coverage of the fight, giving Carwin the kind of high-profile stage reserved for the biggest stars of the sport. A victory over Lesnar would instantly turn the Greeley native into one of the biggest heavyweight attractions on the planet, but Carwin says he’s not feeling any extra pressure.

“No, I think it feels the same. Like I said before, when you get to the UFC, all of these guys are dangerous. I think the most nerves I’ve had was when I was fighting Gonzaga,” Carwin says. “You watch that Cro Cop head kick ten or twelve times and it will freak out anybody.”

Carwin’s intense dislike for Lesnar is well-known. It can be traced back to the last time Lesnar stepped in the cage, one year ago at UFC 100. After pounding Frank Mir into oblivion, Lesnar went on a post-fight tirade, screaming in Mir’s face, shooting middle fingers at the booing fans in attendance and cutting an interview insulting everybody from Mir to UFC sponsors. Carwin is a big believer in respecting your opponents, in giving them credit for competing with you, and he held nothing back when vocalizing his opinion on Lesnar’s actions.

That opinion hasn’t changed much in the past year.

“I compare it to the work world. We all work with people we like and we all work with people we dislike a lot. I don’t care for Brock’s attitude and I don’t care for how he treats people and how he disrespects people,” Carwin says. “If we were in the workplace, I probably wouldn’t talk to the guy or have anything to do with him. And it’s the same here.”

Carwin’s dislike for Lesnar’s attitude fuels his training. There would be nothing sweeter, he says, than knocking Lesnar out cold and taking the heavyweight title.

“It would be a dream come true, the culmination of a life’s work that has gone into athletics and working hard and believing in yourself. I think there’s a lot of life lessons to be learned there,” he says. “But more than anything, at the end of the day I have God and my family, and that’s what I’ll have in ten years when this is over.”