When you speak to Shane Carwin, it’s easy to deal in theoreticals.
Theoretically, a nymph will catch more fish than a dry Hemingway caddis in colder weather, especially in deeper pools. Natural laws in engineering are second only to scientific application (and vice-versa). The second round of an MMA fight begins to show the depth of a fighter’s talents.
Carwin has strong hunches, but he doesn’t know anything about the second round of a fight. The 34-year-old has finished all ten guys he’s faced in the first round, needing little more than a minute for each on average.
To say he’s aggressive in the Octagon is an understatement—Carwin is a thunderclap in the heavyweight division. He is the definition of hell fire.
Not that he’s complaining.
“Yeah, I take each fight how it comes and I’ve been fortunate for the other fights to end in the first,” says the Colorado native, whose latest victim was Neil Wain at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. “If a fight does happen to go the distance, you know I’m well prepared from the training camp for that.”
Yet when you have coaches like Greg Jackson, Christian Allen and Trevor Wittman, and punching bags that punch back like Nate Marquardt, Eliot Marshall and (on-occasion) Georges St-Pierre—the cast and crew he sees in his free time at T’s KO in Wheat Ridge—it’s hard to argue with Carwin.
“It’s a big giant team,” he says. “But I definitely feel great right now, and I know my cardio’s up there. It’s a fight to me, and I don’t go in there looking to pull out or eek out a decision—I go in there to finish fights, and that’s how I look at it.”
Finishing what he sets out to do is a specialty of Carwin’s—an inspiration he takes from his mother, a single mom who raised three boys on her own and got them all through college. He has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and now works as a full-time engineer, “dabbling” in civil work and mechanical engineering.
In casual conversation, Carwin says “I helped develop the hydraulic model fuel” like you and I might say “I tried the new Applebee’s.” Not every UFC fighter says things like that.
And he’s ridiculously gifted as an athlete, which is why he’s in the very unique position to be a contender as a part-time fighter.
Having been a two-time NCAA D-II heavyweight wrestling champion and two-time All-American in football at Western State College—where he also received a bachelor’s in Environmental Technology—Carwin came within a bulging disc away from playing professional football. With one dream over, he invented new ones.
He went to Mines—and it’s fun to think of the 262-pound behemoth Carwin lumbering from class to class amidst the skinny ties and wire-rimmed glasses of his fellow engineers—and started fighting.
Carwin is always seemingly (almost inexplicably) two places at once. He has a son and a wife, and in his spare time he trains . . . and in his sparer time he volunteers as a wrestling coach at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley (an hour north of Denver). He’d be there for UNC’s regionals, but those occur on March 7—the same night he takes on Gabriel Gonzaga in a decidedly huge heavyweight clash at UFC 96 in Columbus, Ohio.
Gonzaga (10-3) has crashed through his own competition since his disappointing loss to Fabricio Werdum at UFC 80, making short work of Justin McCully and Josh Hendricks en route to his collision with Carwin. So, this battle royal could—theoretically—be the penultimate bout for Carwin to get a crack of the heavyweight title. In other words, Gonzaga is the definitive gauge for him to see how far he’s come as a fighter, right?
He just got off work, and he is yawning.
“No, it’s just another fight,” Carwin says. “That’s the way I have to look at it. I will go in there and do my thing and fight to my best ability. That’s all that I can ask of myself.”
It’s not all that matter of fact; it’s just that Carwin doesn’t ask of himself what he can’t answer. He’s very direct. He says more than once “I still have a lot to learn,” but learning happens to be perhaps his biggest talent. Carwin learns fast—prodigiously fast.
“Gabe’s a tough guy,” he says. “He’s good on his feet and on the ground and he’s a top ten heavyweight in the world. As for his Jiu-Jitsu, I’m prepared. I definitely see those guys in the gym every day. Christian Allen and Eliot Marshall are helping me a bunch with my Jiu-Jitsu, as well as Greg Jackson. I get to roll with Nate Marquardt and those guys too, so there are some black belts in the room.”
One of the reverse effects of training at high-altitude is that there’s lusher air available at sea level. It has never been the case for the Denver Nuggets, but will the thicker air of Columbus aid in his stamina having trained at 5,280 feet in Denver?
“Yeah, I think when you go down to some place that’s more sea level I definitely think you’re have more air in you,” he muses. “I am not even sure what the elevation in Columbus is, do you?”
Yeah, 902 feet, or approximately two-and-a-half football fields high. I had to look that up just now, but Carwin is just being accommodating. He doesn’t really care about that—he cares about bettering the man standing in front of him.
“If both of us bring our A-games, I think it’s going to be Fight of the Night,” he says. “I think it’s going to be a great fight and the fans have something to look forward to.”
As a big heavyweight, Carwin has to actually shed a little weight to get down to 265—he is, without a doubt, the Colossus of Colorado.
“Normally I walk around at 275 pounds, but after the rigors of training camp and getting ready for the fight and eating healthy and stuff I’m usually down to weight,” he says. “It comes off naturally.”
Though he’s happy to talk about the other wrestling champion colossus in the UFC heavyweight division—Brock Lesnar—he can’t see that far ahead with the 255-pound Gonzaga standing in front of him.
“Brock’s a gifted athlete as well, you know,” he says, not digging any presumptuous tones he detects in the question. “He’s a big heavyweight, I think he moves well, he’s a gifted athlete. The more that he learns about the game the more dangerous he’s going to become, too. I’d definitely like to see him at some point.”
While we’re dealing with hypotheticals, if Carwin were to become the UFC’s heavyweight champion, would he then become a full-time fighter and a part-time engineer? Or will he continue to split his every minute like a master multi-tasker?
“Oh, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he says, and it’s clear why the question gets a short answer.
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