Fan Opinion: Frank Mir vs Shane Carwin fight breakdown.

American Frank Mir born on 24 may 1979 is 6ft 3in, weighs in at 264.5lbs and has a reach of 70.9 inches. He holds a record of 13-4(2ko, 8sub) and holds a black belt in Kenpo Karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,also he is trained in boxing and Muay thai. Frank fights out of the Southpaw stance.

His opponent and fellow American Shane Carwin born on 4th January 1975 is 6ft2in and weighs in at 253lbs with an 80inch reach. He holds a record of 11-0 (6ko,5sub) with all wins coming in the first round. He holds a brown belt in BJJ,was an NCAA division 2 wrestler and has boxing experience. Shane fights out of the regular stance.

As usual my fight breakdowns are predictions based on the fighter’s training histories, Records (example KO/sub wins or losses and how many fights) and how I think the styles may contrast. Please don’t go betting the farm on what I write, and feel free to comment or tweet on my post which is exclusive to Lowkick.com. Please keep the comments friendly.                                                                                                                                    

Time for the game plans. I feel that Frank is gonna want this fight on the ground. He is an established submission expert with eight of his wins by sub. If the fight is fought on the feet I feel Frank may just get edged out with all of his 4 losses coming by way of KO or TKO, although he has been working a great deal on his boxing of late, I feel that he will try to use his ground skills which have seen Mir tap out such fighters as current HW champ Brock Lesnar, Tim Sylvia, Tank Abbot, Antoni Hardonk and most recently Cheick Kongo among others.

So on to Shane Carwin. I feel he will be more comfortable standing against Mir. He is an established striker with over half his fights ending by KO and his debut against Christian Wellisch lasted 44 seconds was a devastating display of striking. Although Carwin has extensive wrestling experience and BJJ if the fight is taken to ground so he will feel very confident on being strong from any position. Although he has 5 wins coming by way of submission I personally feel that Mir has better ground game. So look for controlled, powerful striking from Carwin.

The styles contrast is interesting with each fighter holding good ground skills, Mir I feel has better. And each fighter having good stand up (Mir more recently training more on striking) I feel we will have an evenly matched fight with each man having the ability to force their stronger skills on to their opponent. Polished jabs and movement from Mir and powerful KO power from Carwin both having good ground skills but Mir trying to take it down more and Carwin trying to force the stand up more.

Now on to my prediction:

I feel that from the beginning Mir will try and put his southpaw jab over Carwin’s left jab, as he tries to move around the cage and avoid a taste of Shane’s power in the opening exchanges. If Frank can get in close and pressure Carwin against the cage then we will see takedowns with Mir’s extra strength he has been training for. I expect Frank to still be quick on the ground but Carwin is no slouch he can pull a good guard and keep busy on the bottom, the end of the round we will see the two back on the feet with Carwin trying to score with heavy hands and Mir backtracking.

Round two is going to start fast, straight into the action with Carwin rocking Mir with a great right hand and Mir trying to move aside from the danger zone and clear his head. Carwin could be getting careless and leaving himself open to a takedown as he aggressively moves forward striking. Mir can catch his leg and score a good takedown again; shuffling Carwin to the cage he slips the leg in to half guard. He drops lefts and rights to the body and head, he tries to take mount but Carwin pushes off and stands back up. Now they both trade strikes and Mir needs to watch out he is cut on the nose. As the referee checks and sees the cut is small and not impeding Mir’s vision he sends the two back into action and the round ends with the two fighters being even on the scores.

Round 3 will start with Carwin being told to go for the cut and again striking aggressively but Mir has good foot speed for a Heavy weight and Carwin is wasting energy chasing him. Frank can see that Carwin is getting slower and fakes a left hand to draw Shanes straight right hand counter, but Mir drops in time with the punch and scores a big takedown. Frank swiftly hops Carwins leg into half guard and postures up to score some good ground and pound. Carwin looks out of sorts as Frank stands and suddenly drops back gripping Shane’s right foot and squeezing out a solid leg lock. Shane Carwin is grimacing and has no choice but to tap tap out. Mir to win by 3rd Round Sub.