• UFC 116

Lesnar survives first-round mauling to submit Carwin

ESPN staff
July 4, 2010
Brock Lesnar remains the UFC heavyweight champion © UFC
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Brock Lesnar recovered from the jaws of defeat at UFC 116 to submit Shane Carwin via triangle choke for an epic come-from-behind victory to retain his UFC heavyweight title.

Making a return to the Octagon after a year-long absence caused by a life-threatening intestinal disorder, Lesnar strolled to the cage to be greeted by boos and no shortage of questions. Was a man of such exceptional athleticism and size able to truly recover from such a serious condition?

For five full minutes the answer appeared to be 'no' as Carwin rocked the champion with a huge left uppercut, before dropping him with a series of follow-up blows that had Lesnar curling up into a foetal position. Carwin pounded away, victory seemingly inevitable as Lesnar did nothing more than cover up helplessly, in what appeared to be a yawning example of the limitations in his still-developing MMA game.

However, Lesnar knew that Carwin had never been to a second round. He knew the knockout specialist would punch himself out, and when he got to round two, he turned the tables on their head. Finding his first takedown of the night against a clearly drained Carwin, who had shaken off Lesnar's first-round efforts with ease, the champion worked to mount, before flipping over for a fight-ending triangle choke at 2.19 of round two.

"This isn't about me, this is about my family, my doctors, my training staff, I am blessed by God. I stand before you a humble champion," said Lesnar, who fights Cain Velasquez next. "I had to weather the storm. He's got some heavy shots. But I knew he was getting tired. Each shot was less dramatic than the last."

Carwin, who suffered the first loss of his career, remained humble in defeat, preferring not to blame the fact that he had clearly punched himself out.

"Brock's a tough son-of-a-*****, full credit to him, he took that ground-and-pound like nobody else."

In the co-main event of the evening, Chris Leben scored the biggest victory of his career, forcing Yoshihiro Akiyama to tap due to triangle choke at 4.40 of round three. In a huge contender for Fight of the Year, Leben showed unbelievable perseverance to choke out the Japanese superstar just three weeks after he had beaten Aaron Simpson at the TUF 11 Finale.

Leben was like a zombie in round two, walking through countless punches to wobble his foe. Akiyama was typically flashy and far more technical, but at one point both men stood directly in front of each other with their senses scrambled - both still throwing straight from the hip. In the end, Akiyama's judo appeared to be the decisive factor as he edged towards victory, but with 20 seconds remaining Leben snapped on the triangle.

"Did you love that Joe?" a pumped-up Leben shouted at Joe Rogan post-fight. "I want Wanderlei. He was supposed to have this fight. I want him next. It doesn't matter if I'm on my feet, on my back, I get the job done."

One of the shocks of the night arguably came from Stephen Bonnar, who made up for the injustice of his first loss to Krzysztof Soszynski by scoring a TKO victory at 3.08 of the second round. Bouncing back from three consecutive losses, Bonnar shook aside a one-sided first round from Soszynski to drop the Pole in round two with a savage knee, before forcing the stoppage with relentless punches to his grounded opponent.

On another night, Chris Lytle may have walked away with another Fight of the Night cheque after he survived a first-round choke to beat Matt Brown via kimura at 2.02 of round two. A crunching uppercut pierced the defences of Brown, which opened the gate for the fight-ending submission.

And in the opening fight of the main card, George Sotiropoulos promoted himself into the lightweight division's top five fighters with a dominant win over Kurt Pellegrino. Once again, Sotiropoulos displayed all sides of his game to score a unanimous decision victory.

Prelim results
Brendan Schaub bt. Chris Tuchscherer via TKO 1:07 of Round 1
Ricardo Romero bt. Seth Petruzelli via submission (armbar) 2:05 of Round 2
Kendall Grove bt. Goran Reljic via split decision
Gerald Harris bt. Dave Branch via KO (slam) 2:35 of Round 3
Daniel Roberts bt. Forrest Petz via split decision
Jon Madsen bt. Karlos Vemola via unanimous decision

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