"I think he made the right decision to stay on the gas pedal. He could have slowed down, but when you have the ref saying that you are one or two punches away from that fight being stopped...and there was a point in the fight, probably about 45 seconds in that round, I looked at Shane and there was nothing left in the fuel tank...From that point, it was just one of those things and if you've never been in that situation, you just don't know what it's like. It had nothing to do with his conditioning; it's just he gives 110% with everything. I commend the referee because he let the fight go to be able to see a fighter come back, so I don't think it was the referee's fault. I think he did a great job. But I think the lack of experience of not knowing how not to finish someone played into that...We beat ourselves that night. I really don't think Brock beat us," stated world-class boxing/MMA trainer Trevor Wittman as he shared his thoughts Shane Carwin's loss to Brock Lesnar at UFC 116. Check out what else he had to say about Carwin, James Toney's upcoming MMA debut against Randy Coutur, and much more.
PC: How is everything going Trevor?
TW: Everything is going great man. I'm enjoying life.
PC: Shane Carwin appeared to have Brock Lesnar right where he wanted him. Can you break down what you saw that night and the game plan going into the fight?
TW: The game plan going in was, you know, I've always said it, but Brock Lesnar is somewhat one-dimensional, especially with his striking. It's one of those things where we did some things to be able to shut down his right hand. That was his only tool that we thought he had standing up. He uses the jab really just to set up his takedowns or to set up his right hands, but it's never really landed or been affective. So we had to shut down the right hand and it would pretty much be all fun from that point. I thought the game plan worked to a tee. I thought it was a perfect example of how to set a blueprint to shut down Brock. The thing is, Shane hits so freaking hard, he had Brock running from him. I think it was a great night for Shane Carwin. Even though we didn't come up with the win, he earned a lot of fans and he earned credibility with his demolishing style and I think everybody will be watching for him in his next fight.
PC: No question he got maybe a little too anxious when he had Brock in trouble, but I see people saying he wasn't in shape. I find it hard to believe that he wouldn't come in shape for the biggest fight of his life.
TW: The thing is, everybody could have the thought of that, but we have a solid reputation of what we have coming out of this gym. Our fighters have never come into a fight out of shape, especially when they have had time to train. That's one of those things where I can sit here and say what type of shape he was in and the things he was doing here in the gym, but that's besides the point. The point is Shane gives 110% in anything that he does. He's a finisher. He's only been in the 1st round and he's finished everybody he's fought. You go out and you're fighting on the biggest stage of your career, you have millions of people viewing this fight, and you come out to the cage and you have more fans cheering you and Brock comes out to boos and your energy level comes a little stronger. You go out there and everything works to perfection. You catch him with a great shot and it seems like all of your past 12 fights. And then, you have the ref sitting over the top of you as you're landing bombs saying, "Hey Brock, I'm going to stop the fight." Well, you hear that 3 or 4 times, that's going to keep you hitting the gas pedal. Well, a guy like Shane Carwin, who exerts so much energy when he throws these power shots, I don't think that fight would have changed 9 out of 10 times. He's fighting for his #1 goal to become the heavyweight champion and there is nothing greater than that. It was right on the tip of his fingers. Let's just say he would have let off the gas pedal and then he gets caught with a big right hand in the 2nd round. He would have hated himself for the rest of his life and asked, "Should I have hit that gas pedal a little harder. Could I have finished him with the ref over the top of me?" I think he made the right decision to stay on the gas pedal. He could have slowed down, but when you have the ref saying that you are one or two punches away from that fight being stopped...and there was a point in the fight, probably about 45 seconds in that round, I looked at Shane and there was nothing left in the fuel tank. He got to the corner and Shane looks at me and he goes, "Trevor, I don't have any legs. My legs are done; they're shot." And from that point on, it was no instructional stuff. I told him to get off the stool and bounce around and make believe that your feet are fresh as hell. At that point in the corner, honestly Percy, I knew we lost the fight. I knew the fight was over at that point. If anybody has ever had their legs go out from underneath them, especially if they have fighting experience, that is the worst thing to lose. When he went out for that 2nd round, he was as flat as can be, his weight was on his heals and he threw that right hand, Brock Lesnar shot a double and he didn't even change levels. He just leaned into it. Shane didn't even try for underhooks. It looked to me as if Shane was just excited to be able to lay down (laughing). From that point, it was just one of those things and if you've never been in that situation, you just don't know what it's like. It had nothing to do with his conditioning; it's just he gives 110% with everything. I commend the referee because he let the fight go to be able to see a fighter come back, so I don't think it was the referee's fault. I think he did a great job. But I think the lack of experience of not knowing how not to finish someone played into that. Being a coach, I can't really critique things on a conditioning level. He was in the moment and I expect him to be in the moment many more times in his career and he will be able to make that adjustment a little bit better with experience.
PC: Once that 1st round ended and Shane stood up, you could see his legs were gone and I told my friends the fight was over.
TW: Yeah man. It was one of those things and I was probably more confident going into that night with Brendan and Shane than I have been for my whole career. I knew the game plan and I liked how my guys matched up stylistically against those types of fighters. I was just so confident throughout that entire fight and there was such a relief throughout that entire 1st round. And I don't know if that's a good thing in a corner because when you get relaxed like that, it just turns your whole night and it was an emotional night, from such a high to such a low, so quick. It's a tough thing for a trainer and then you try to go back and critique and see what he did wrong and honestly, I was asking myself, "Did I not do the right thing by not telling him to slow down?" There was times where I was asking myself if I should tell him to slow down or let off a little bit. I don't think I would. When you got a guy turtled up and he's not even throwing punches back, his hands are up and his knees are up, that's a sign of stoppage there. Like I said, I can't blame the ref. I thought the ref did a great job. He really showed what a world-class referee he is. We beat ourselves that night. I really don't think Brock beat us.
The nice thing too is I talk about a lot of stuff from the boxing game. We've done interviews over and over and I say Mayweather is the best out there. I don't think anybody is really going to give him any fits. And what it takes to be great in the boxing game, and in the fight game, is you gotta be able to overcome adversity. Fighters can be dominant for a long period of time and will be in the record books for a long period of time. What Mayweather did that night with Mosley is he got caught, he got rocked, and he still walked him down and to me, that shows a sign of greatness. I think when we are going to see a greatness out of Shane [Carwin] is when he goes through his next two or three opponents and getting back to Brock Lesnar and beating the one guy he ever lost to. If he can overcome that loss, I think that will be huge for his career and I think that, in a couple of years, we will be laughing at that situation that happened a couple of weeks ago.
PC: On that same card, you had Brendan Schaub knockout Lesnar's training partner, Chris Tuchscherer, rather quickly. What did you think of his performance?
TW: Going into that fight with Chris, I thought it was a great fight for us. I think Brendan's got one of the best jabs in the business. Once he starts hitting you with that jab, people worry about the jab and then it sets up that right hand. Brendan is very accurate with his punches and he gets in nice position to throw them. He's just waiting for someone to react and he always seems to beat their reaction with those long punches of his. For Brendan only being 240 pounds, he's got a big punch.
PC: I saw an interview with him saying he wanted more cage time. Is that just him talking, because everyone likes the quick finish?
TW: Honestly, I think that's more of an emotional thing. I didn't really know if any fighter really believes that. When you do a lot of hard work in the gym and you go out there to compete, you are expecting a lot more emotionally. You kind of feel like you haven't done enough. But this sport is all about that sweet science. You want to get in there and hit people without getting hit. I'm his coach and I don't want to see him take punches. If I want to see anybody go rounds, it's Shane. I would like to try to make him go rounds, but I don't know if that's possible. There may be a couple of fighters that I want to see go the distance, but Brendan's not one of them. Go out there and do your thing, make a name for yourself by stopping people in the 1st round and that way, more people will want to follow you. I think that's just a lot of talking (laughing).
PC: Rashad Evans seems to be content with waiting Shogun out and not taking a fight in between. I would hate to see an injury or something jeopardize his title shot, so I agree with sitting out. As a trainer, if he's going to be out that long, how do you keep him sharp and deal with the layoff, in general, without overtraining him?
TW: Let's talk about that in stages. There are some fighters that need time off and there are some that need to be more active. We have been together for the last 2 fights, the Thiago Silva fight and of course the fight with Rampage. Those are very dominant fights in the wrestling aspect, so for him to go out there and change his style and try to knock everybody out because of that Chuck Liddell fight, and of course it was a nice knockout, so you want to knock everybody out? But we got back to his wrestling and there are a lot of things that we worked on, like positioning and his boxing footwork, and we're setting up different things for his shots and takedowns. In both of those fights, he got caught in the 3rd round. Me, as a trainer, I want to be able to tighten that stuff up. I really feel that we have one of the best defensive games in the business and that's not taking punches. We don't take punches because it's just not a smart game with those little gloves on.
Now, let's get to the Shogun fight. If we go and take another fight with someone else, whether it's for an interim title or not, and he goes out there and wins the fight, but he injures his hand, well now you're injured and can't take the fight and someone else gets that title shot. He deserves a title shot and you never want to lose that opportunity to fight for a title. Now the advantage we have over Shogun is that we have time to train. We got time to work on a game plan and to tighten our little things up that are going to be able to shutdown what Shogun does and bring out what we do well. He's recovering from his knee injury and to me, I think that's an advantage for us. It's not a timing thing. It's not like he's fighting for money. He's fighting to be great. We want to go out there and get that title back and our plan, this time, is to not only get that title back, but to hold it for a long time. It's one of those things where we're trying to take the right steps to better his career and get him back to being champion.
PC: The UFC has an intriguing fight coming up between Randy Couture and James Toney. You come from the boxing world, so I wanted to get your thoughts on that fight.
TW: The nice thing about it is James has been under contract for a long period of time, so he's had a lot of time to study the different aspects of MMA. But from the way he's talking, it doesn't sound like he's really preparing himself. I know King Mo personally and actually, I got to work with Mo Lawal a little bit and I guess James Toney choked him out. I don't know if he really choked him out or if he was going for one of his takedowns and had his neck in there. The only way I can see this fight going, and you never know because it's a fight and anything can happen, but the only way I can see James winning this fight is within the first 20 to 50 seconds, and that's just landing that first shot. I think if they get into a clinch, and even if James is able to get out of the clinch and get back up, when you are wrestling out of those clinches, your arms are fatigued. When you break free from those clinches, your arms are like jello. If you use your punch, you lose your timing and you lose your accuracy. I just don't see him catching him. I mean, I see Randy get hit with right hands all the time, but after that point, I just don't see the chances of James knocking him out as good. I do see Couture winning the fight. It's tough for a boxer to jump right over. Now, if a boxer takes a couple of years off and learns everything, then that's different.
There is a guy out of Colorado named Mike Alvarado who I think would be a great MMA fighter. He has an extensive wrestling career and if he puts the time into his ground game, I would love to see that. Kermit Cintron was talking about it at one point. If those guys come into the sport with their wrestling backgrounds, it would be something to see. I tell you what, me being from the boxing game and having these big guys lay on me, because they just play with me a little bit, the first thing I think is, "Can we just be friends" (laughing). It's a place I don't like to be is on my back. I just don't see James Toney winning this fight, but I hope he does. I love James Toney. I think he's a great person, but we gotta respect the sports for what they are. MMA guys gotta respect boxing if they go over there; you got shoes on and hit a lot harder and the exchanges are a lot different. There is a lot more in-fighting in boxing because you are a lot closer. But then, the boxers gotta respect these MMA guys and their sport. It's just a different sport.
PC: It's always a pleasure to speak to you. I appreciate your time. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
TW: Keep watching both sports man. A lot of people are saying this sport is better than this one and vice versa, but man, it's fighting, man. We all love fighting. There are entertainment aspects in both sports. Boxing is great for what it is, MMA is great for what it is, and Muay Thai is great for what it is, and wrestling the same thing. Let's all enjoy the fight sports and keep these sports going. I don't want to see boxing die just like I don't want to see MMA die. I want to keep them all going.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]