Issue 094
November 2012
Shane Carwin
Ultimate Fighter 16 coach and former UFC interim heavyweight champion
Getting back to fighting condition has been a slow process. My back has definitely gone through its fair share of surgeries and damage. I think we’re good to go, and I think I can get back as close to 100% as I’ll ever be, but it’s a continual process seeing my surgeon in Denver.
There have definitely been some moments where I felt I had setbacks. There were very hard times, especially when my nerves were regenerating in my left leg and in my spinal cord. The times that they were regenerating and the times I was having difficulty with it, I questioned some things. But my surgeon, he’s one of the top surgeons in the world. He’s the real Doogie Howser. He said it’s part of the process.
We just take it step by step, and I continue to see him, and he’s reassured my wife and I that everything will be OK later in life – because the most important thing to me is my family. To be able to make sure I can walk my daughter down the aisle, that’s way more important than fighting will ever be. But he’s reassured us that everything is going to be OK and that I’ll lead a normal life when I get older, so I’m going to continue to fight and do the thing that I genuinely love.
I don’t think a lot of people know this, but I was in the 1998 NFL draft. I was projected to be in the fifth round. That’s the same round as Peyton Manning and those guys. I played in the Senior Bowl, and I was rated the second-strongest linebacker in the draft out of 36. But that was when I had my first back injury. I ruptured my disc, and I was used goods. I never even got a shot at training camp.
I went in and had surgery and stuff and fell into a depression. I never got the chance to play a sport I loved and I grew up doing. When people ask me why I still work as an engineer today and do those things, it’s for the safety of my family. They come first, and obviously there’s some job security in the UFC, but you’re always only one injury away. All these guys, I look at them, and some of them are like brothers to me. But if someone kicks them wrong one day in practice and blows out their ACL, what do they have?
I’m just fortunate to be able to be in there and compete. That’s what I’m happy about. I thank God every day I’m able to walk and compete. It’s a bonus that I get to fight.
When I decide to retire, it will ultimately be based on my wife and I. We talk about it every fight. It’s ongoing, and it’s about what’s best for our family. When I feel like I can’t compete anymore and when I feel like I need to be home or I want to do something else – if my little girl is getting into soccer or I feel like I want to coach my son or something – it’s when those other opportunities come along.
If I feel like my time should be used coaching those kids in the Boys & Girls Club, which I feel like that time is coming soon, then that’s what I’ll do. Hopefully, I’ve set my family up good enough where I can take care of them and do those types of things that I want to enjoy doing.
I just want to be healthy and get back into the Octagon and be able to fight at 100% again. I’m anxious to just have my body be at 100% and be able to compete at the level I was able to compete at before. I’ve been competing my whole life, since I was six years old.
To not be able to compete and to feel the types of things that you go through can send you into a little bit of depression, especially when it’s something you’ve been used to your whole life. To be able to get back in there and fight again excites me.
