May 24th, 2008
White collar battle at UFC 84
By Neil Davidson
THE CANADIAN PRESS
It’s not often you see a lawyer fight an engineer in a cage, but those on hand at the MGM Grand Garden Arena will see it right off the bat at UFC 84 in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
The opening bout of the mixed martial arts card pits Christian Wellisch (lawyer) against Shane Carwin (engineer) in a heavyweight battle that marks Carwin’s coming out party in the UFC.
A former star NCAA Division II wrestler and footballer, Carwin played in the 1998 Senior Bowl, attended the NFL combine in Indianapolis, and was once touted as a fifth-round draft pick in the NFL until a back injury cooled the interest. The linebacker still merited a tryout with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Rather than playing arena football for the New England Seawolves, he returned to school and won the Division II national wrestling title in 1999 in Fargo, N.D.
At 6-3 and 260 pounds, Carwin is one of a wave of new big men in the UFC.
Former pro wrestler Brock Lesnar (6-3, 265 pounds) turned heads with his raw power in a submission loss to former heavyweight champion Frank Mir in his UFC debut at UFC 81 in February. And last month in Montreal, former NCAA all-American wrestler Cain Velasquez (6-1, 240) thumped Brad Morris at UFC 83.
Wellisch, a load himself at 6-3 and 237 pounds, trains with Velasquez in San Jose so he knows all about the new breed. He’s also done his research on the 33-year-old Carwin.
"A big strong guy … he likes to take his opponents down and ground and pound them," said the 32-year-old Wellisch, whose fighting nickname is the Hungarian Nightmare.
There’s not that much tape of Carwin to watch. He has won all eight of his fights since turning pro in October 2005, requiring a total of just eight minutes 58 seconds to dispatch his opponents. The longest lasted two minutes 11 seconds. Others were over in 22, 29 and 49 seconds.
Tags: 84, results, ufc
7 Responses to “White collar battle at UFC 84”
i’m not sure what the difference is between the shareholders and executives and americans in general. the way i see it, if everything was equal, these firms wouldn’t go through the red tape of sponsoring H1Bs. maybe they wouldn’t be so profitable otherwise, and these managers would be out of jobs, and wouldn’t buy these houses and cars and eat at these restaurants. i think profits tend trickle to down, whether thru consumption or investment.
Well, then they should do what they can to remain an attractive place to work, not rely on regulations locking people into place. Just like it is for the rest of us.
(I’m not an economist, I’m just interested in it.)
Changing companies for people with H1B’s is a bitch. It’s possible, but not as easy as it would be for a citizen.
I see the “they took errrr jaaaawbs” faction is out and feeling lively today.
The difference is that members of one group have billions of dollars and members of the other don’t.