Shane Carwin is returning to mixed martial arts.
The former UFC interim heavyweight champion is now 41 years old and last fought in 2011, when Junior Dos Santos separated his face from his head.
Images of a bloody Shane Carwin after that fight were something of a meme-enthusiasts dream, but it was not those injuries that ended his career. Rather it was an accumulation of back injuries that eventually forced Carwin to retire.
Just one year before the drubbing at the hands of JDS, Shane Carwin was as close as you can get to being the UFC Heavyweight Champion of the world, without actually being it. He was the interim champion, the champion who was holding a title while Brock Lesnar recovered from diverticulitis.
The title unification bout between Shane Carwin and Brock Lesnar at UFC 116, is a throwback fight, back to the days of “the Hammer” Mark Coleman. To when big heavyweights sometimes lost championships because they gassed out.
