UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar returned to the Octagon Saturday night after a year off and won a tremendous fight against Shane Carwin at UFC 116, withstanding terrible punishment in the first round to come back and choke Carwin out in the second."I stand before you a humble champion," Lesnar said afterward. "And I'm still the toughest S.O.B. around."
The two giants collided just 30 seconds into the first round and briefly went to the ground, with Lesnar appearing to have the upper hand. But Carwin had no trouble shaking him off and getting back to his feet, and that's when Carwin went to town: Carwin unleashed a brutal torrent of punches, starting with a hard upper cut, knocking Lesnar down and then getting on top of him on the ground and raining punch after punch after punch to Lesnar's face, which turned into a bloody mess.
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Amazingly, however, Lesnar managed to survive, stay conscious, and eventually even get back to his feet. Lesnar became the first person ever to make it out of the first round with Carwin, and at the end of the first round Lesnar was even landing a few strikes on the feet, although he was still obviously badly hurt from that barrage of punches from Carwin.
Lesnar, who declined to touch gloves with Frank Mir when they fought last year, did touch gloves with Carwin at the start of the second round, and he even grinned at the man who had pummeled him. After slipping a punch, Lesnar landed the takedown he wanted and got on top of Carwin. That was where Lesnar, the former NCAA wrestling champion, wanted to be. Lesnar worked his way into an arm-triangle choke and eventually got Carwin to tap.
Lesnar acknowledged that he had been hurt in the early portion of the fight.
"I just had to weather the storm," Lesnar said. "He's got some heavy shots. I just had to hang on and I knew he was getting tired. Each shot was less dramatic than the other and I just had to let him go."
Carwin and Lesnar had engaged in some pre-fight trash talk, but Carwin was complimentary toward Lesnar after the fight.
"My hat's off to him," Carwin said. "He's the champion. I fell down but I'll get back up."
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