Frank Mir vs Shane Carwin UFC 111 Odds, Picks & Predictions: Many people have a problem with interim belts, and I’m one of them. However, if there’s one positive thing from having two guys fight for an interim belt, is that the fight goes from being a three, 5-minute round sprint, to a five, 5-minute marathon for which fighters have to prepare for accordingly.
That is the case with tonight’s UFC 111 Odds, Picks & Predictions co-main event, as either sports betting odds favorite (13-4-0) Frank Mir [-150 ML] or sports betting odds underdog (11-0-0) Shane Carwin [+120 ML] will earn a crack at the undisputed UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar later this year. It all happens tonight at UFC 111 Odds, Picks & Predictions live from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, live on pay-per-view.
This heavyweight bout is most intriguing due to the fact that if Mir plans to have any shot at defeating Brock Lesnar and get his “sanity” back, there’s no better guy to challenge his newly acquired skills than a monster like Shane Carwin. The 6-foot-5, 265-pound former NCAA wrestling star is undefeated in his MMA career, with none of his fights getting past the first round.
"It’s hard to see a lot because he’s put everybody away really fast and decisively," Mir said. "But he has a very good game for a heavyweight as far as his wrestling background and pretty decent hard striking, and from what I’ve seen, I think he’s a very good mixed martial artist."
In the UFC, Carwin is 4-0 but with the only name even worth mentioning being Gabriel Gonzaga, who he defeated by knockout at UFC 96. Without question, these guys are a perfect matchup for one another, as a bigger, stronger and much-improved Mir will certainly challenge Carwin like never before.
However, if there’s one thing they share in common is their heated dislike for UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. Needless to say, there’s been no shortage of trash-talk in the days leading up to this massive fight.
“To have an array of personalities is good for the sport,” Carwin said. “Everybody cheers for the talkers and the non-talkers and the performers. It’s good for the sport to have guys like Brock and Frank and for us to watch their battles, but [it’s] also [good to have] the quiet guys like Cain Velasquez. There are people who always root for the quiet, silent types, which is the way I prefer to be a little bit more.
“As far as Frank’s comments, I was in the hospital with my newborn daughter, so I never got to hear them personally come out of his mouth. I think they were taken beyond what he meant them to be. He was just talking aggressively, like what he’d like to do to Brock, and let’s admit it, we live in a hyper-sensitive society these days. Back in the ’70s, nothing would have been thought of that had it been said in the boxing world.”
