And Carwin looked good against Gonzaga? He got rocked right away, got taken down and put on his back, and won the fight by connecting against a guy with a notoriously suspect chin.
I'm not saying Cain's last fight was much better, but at least he showed something during that fight. He showed he has an incredible chin, considering he took 3 or 4 clean shots from a powerful striker and didn't really get phased. And he showed his excellent wrestling. Granted, it's not tough to out-wrestle Kongo, but he didn't simply out-wrestle him, he destroyed him on the ground. And sure Cain didn't finish him, but if it wasn't obvious already, Lesnar/Herring should have showed us that it's tough to finish a tough guy that's determined to turtle up.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Cain walks through Carwin or anything. I just don't understand how the Carwin mystique has taken off these past couple months. People have been acting like Cain was merely a speedbump for him. But what's Carwin got for Cain? He's got power in his striking, but more power than Kongo? If Cain could eat all of Kongo's power directly on his chin, what would Carwin have done?
And Carwin's got about 15 pounds on Cain, but Cain was a 2-time All-American at Arizona State, a great Division 1 wrestling school. Carwin wrestled at freaking Western State College.
I think that fight would still have been very much of a toss-up. There was a good chance Carwin could have out-struck Cain or used his size to out-wrestle him, but I think there's also a good chance Cain could have caught Carwin with some of his own power (after all, Gonzaga rocked Carwin with punches) or used his better technical wrestling to negate Carwin's size advantage and out-wrestled him.