Shane Carwin, the former UFC interim heavyweight champion, has been accused of intentionally losing to Brock Lesnar at their UFC 116 bout by one of his sponsors and has not received his sponsorship money from them because of this.
The news was rumored by Middleasy.com in their "Rumor Mill" segment but was not confirmed until recently when posted on Carwin's twitter.
Fighter's only magazine has reported that Carwin and his management have decided to pursue a solution through legal means and will not resort to mud-slinging and other such sordid tactics.
What are the implications of this?
It does not hurt the UFC since Carwin is no longer the champion and has not fought since losing his title. He has been out of the limelight for a while and his embarrassment will thus not effect the company to a large degree.
The only way this debacle could hurt the UFC is if Carwin actually did throw the fight in which case the UFC could suffer irreparable damage.
It is already closely related with professional wrestling in the minds of many ignorant sports fans and a fight being fixed will only make that relation stronger. It would also make all UFC results past and present seem much more questionable. Did Anderson Silva really make a miracle comeback or did Chael Sonnen lose on purpose?
Still, the accusation being made is relatively groundless since his mysterious sponsor has provided no proof for their claim, so it is likely that little will come of it.
It does not hurt Brock Lesnar since he is not being accused (at least not yet) of being in on the hypothetical deal.
The only person adversely impacted by this is Shane Carwin himself. He is brining the issue of him potentially losing on purpose to the forefront when he could have kept it quiet and dealt with it through legal means only.
However, it is possible that Carwin thought that the story might break eventually and that it was better from him to report it rather than it escape against his will and have it look like he was trying to hide it; Attempting to keep it away from people may have made him look guilty!
Nevertheless, for Carwin, nothing good can come from this (besides maybe a check from his sponsor if he wins the lawsuit).
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