Author: By Frank Curreri

SAN JOSE, November 19 – Dan “Hendo” Henderson versus Mauricio “Shogun” Rua = Instant classic. The inspiring and dramatic five-round war between the light heavyweight stars produced one of the all-time greatest fights you will ever see Saturday night, and it was Henderson who eked out a unanimous decision on the judges’ scorecards at the HP Pavilion via scores of 48-47 across the board. See post-fight interview

But as is the case with such magical masterpieces, there are no words on the printed page that can do justice to a fight where both men came oh-so-close to finishing the fight – only to be deprived by the never-say-die spirit in the other.

Both men set a fast and furious pace early, and both put the other on the deck with punches. It was Henderson (29-8), making his triumphant return to the UFC </a>after winning the Strikeforce title, who seemed to carry the first three rounds behind booming overhand rights and potent uppercuts. Yet while Rua would be wobbled, and bloodied, and overwhelmed by punches, and gassed, the Brazilian refused to quit. In fact, the 29-year-old stormed back in rounds four and five, blitzing his tired 41-year-old adversary with hard punches and wobbling the iron-chinned Californian with punches. Rua further tormented the former two-division PRIDE champion with ground and pound but, amazingly, could not find a breaking point.

It was the raging subplot that dripped for every second of this back-and-forth classic: With every passing second you were thinking, “Who wants it more?” and “Who will quit?”

“I hit him hard and clean,” an exhausted Henderson said afterwards of Rua, a former UFC champion who fell to 20-6. “I thought I could finish him the first two or three rounds, but he finished the fight strong. But I knew I had him the first three rounds easy. He stayed in there with great heart and he finished strong.”

He has lost six of his past eight fights, yet fans still go nuts whenever they see Wanderlei Silva at the neighborhood grocery store, at his Las Vegas gym, or posing for pictures at a UFC Fan Expo. The mounting accumulation of L’s on Silva’s record are still dwarfed by his 22 highlight reel knockouts and an extraordinary unbeaten streak that once spanned 18 fights against top-shelf competition. As much as ever, the ultra-aggressive Brazilian is widely revered for the fearlessness and ferocity that define his style, which has made him one of the best in the business at making “stadiums shake” (a goal of his). But after 15 years in the fight game, and a 27-second knockout loss to Chris Leben, retirement whispers have begun to swirl around the 35-year-old MMA icon. A growing chorus of fans and reporters are wondering: “How much longer should Wanderlei Silva fight?”

Silva’s performance against Cung Le (7-1) in the UFC 139 co-main event could go a long way toward answering that question. Cung Le, a San Shou master whom Silva called “the best kicker in MMA,” lives in San Jose, California, and has a huge following in the San Francisco bay area. Silva will have to beat Le in his backyard, but doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by the home field disadvantage, asserting, “I’m going to make his fans cheer for me.”

I interviewed Wandy a week before the showdown and he sounded as upbeat and positive as ever while candidly addressing a host of topics including A) potential retirement; B) whether he intends to become a more defensive and cautious fighter; C) how being a terrible soccer player led him to MMA; D) why he wants to fight in Japan and Brazil “one more time” and E) the best advice he can offer to young fighters.

Here are the unedited excerpts of that poignant and revealing interview with one of the sport’s most beloved figures:

UFC: You’re known as an ultra-aggressive fighter. Have you ever thought about becoming a little more patient inside the cage or is that just simply impossible?

Wanderlei: It’s true, after my last fight I need to change my game a little bit because this sport is changing a lot. I don’t have more space for (a) fall. I’ve trained a lot on my defense and for attacking in the right moment. I’m going to try and hold my instincts. Because sometimes my opponents touch me and I want to kill them. I need to wait a little bit more. I’m going to try. I pray a lot and I ask for God to give me the strength to help make me calm and allow me to execute my coaches’ gameplan.

UFC: The Wanderlei of today versus the Wanderlei of six or seven years ago? Who wins?

Wanderlei: Whichever one trains more! It’s an interesting moment for me right now. I’ve had a lot of changes in the past few years. When I moved to the UFC I changed my life and I’ve been adapting since. Right now I have a gym and we have 40 amateurs and 15 pros. I’m training with these guys. Right now I’m back to the normal things in my life.

UFC: Did the loss to Leben make you think about retirement?

Wanderlei: No, I didn’t think about that. I felt sad because I trained a lot for that fight. It was like an accident, no? It happens. Sometimes I have bad days, but on the bad days my fans make me feel good.

UFC: You’ve defeated so many elite fighters and thrilled millions of fans. What is your proudest moment in this sport?

Wanderlei: I think it’s when I won the PRIDE Grand Prix because I was champ after beating the toughest guys in the world. I’m so happy with my career. I’ve fought with the toughest guys in the world – heavyweights, light heavyweights, middleweights. I’m proud because I’ve fought the best guys and I’ve done good, and I have a lot to give to this sport in the future.

UFC: When adoring strangers walk up to you and mention a fight, what fight do they bring up the most?

Wanderlei: I think my two victories against Rampage. I think my second knockout over him is one of my best victories, no?

UFC: You and Vitor Belfort both live and train in Las Vegas. You’re both Brazilian legends. And so many fans still talk about the first fight between you guys. What are your thoughts on a rematch with Vitor Belfort?

Wanderlei: He’s a good guy but of course I’d like to fight again with him. That fight needs to happen.

UFC: How much longer would you like to fight?

Wanderlei: It depends how long my body allows me. But I do want to fight in Japan and Brazil before I retire.

UFC: Why?

Wanderlei: I made my (career) in Japan and I had the best times of my life there. I’ve had a lot of fun and I need to give one more fight there. Brazil is my hometown so I want one more there, too.

UFC: You get to pick your opponents for Japan and Brazil? Who are you picking!?

Wanderlei: Good question! I don’t know. That’s the boss’s decision.

UFC: Let’s turn to Saturday night’s fight with Cung Le. What are your impressions of him as a fighter?

Wanderlei: Before I knew nothing about him, but after the fight was made I studied his game and he’s a really good fighter. I haven’t seen anyone fight like him. I need to adapt my style for him. But I’m ready for the fight.

UFC: You run a gym in Las Vegas. What’s the best advice you can give to a young fighter for their careers? Not technique-wise, but career advice?

Wanderlei: I tell the guys in my gym … I have 16 years in this sport and I wish I could just be starting my career right now. Because, man, this sport is changing so much. The last event (UFC on FOX), going to the biggest channel in Brazil (Globo) … everybody is talking about it in Brazil, everybody! It’s unbelievable how big this sport is right now.
 
UFC: What did you feel when you saw Junior dos Santos knock Cain Velasquez down with that booming overhand right?

Wanderlei: He made everybody here jump out of our seats! He’s a humble guy who came from a simple family. Man, that was a really important event for us in Brazil because it was on the biggest channel in Brazil. That would be a dream for all MMA fighters. So that victory has opened a lot of doors for fighters in Brazil.

UFC: MMA is growing like a wildfire in your home country, which is really the motherland of the sport. Soccer (“football” everywhere else in the world) is huge in Brazil and they always field one of the world’s best teams. Are you a big fan of soccer?

Wanderlei: I watch soccer but I’m not a fanatic for it .A long time ago I wanted to play, but every time the guys chose their teams I was one of the last guys. The guys knew I didn’t play very well. I played very bad, man. After that I started to fight.

 

Pray for world peace. Pray for prosperity. Pray for good health.

Standard stuff compared to the extraordinary prayer of UFC fighter Michael McDonald.

“As a child I said, ‘God, I want a hard life.’”

The genesis that spawned that unusual wish? Young Michael, intuitive beyond his years, observed a curious trend in the world. It involved the decimals of human civilization who have etched their names in the history books.

“Anyone whose name is still remembered from years past,” McDonald said, “they either did something really bad, or something really good. But they have one thing in common: They all had a hard life.

“Most people just want to skate through life and satisfy their needs in the easiest way. I want to do something unique with my life, and the only way I’m going to do something special is if it’s a hard life.”

By his own account, McDonald’s quest for a rocky road has been granted. The Modesto, California, native is a professional fighter, and less than one percent of the population can truthfully say that. It is an often unglamorous life filled with grueling training sessions that often push you to the limit physically, mentally and spiritually. Fear is a common companion. Sacrifice and discipline are musts. Frequent partying and living on the wild side are potential career killers.

The interesting thing is, though he’s been training since he was a teenager and even turned pro at the exceptionally ripe age of 16, McDonald (13-1) says he didn’t choose the fighting life. It chose him.

“Fighting was never in my plan for myself,” said the deeply religious McDonald, who at 20 years old is the youngest fighter among the UFC’s roster of 303 athletes. “I wanted to be a counselor, I wanted to be a cabinet maker, I wanted to be a preacher, I wanted to be a martial arts teacher. Fighting was never something I wanted for my own life. But in time it came to be. This is what God put in my life and this is what I need to do right now. It might not have been the plan I had for myself, but this is a good life. It might be hard – but I asked for a hard life. This is the plan that He has for me. This is my ministry right now.”

Regarded by many as a future star-in-the-making, McDonald is 3-0 under the Zuffa banner and chases his fourth straight win on Saturday when he faces unbeaten Alex Soto (6-0-1) at UFC 139. The bantamweight battle harbors a potential redemption of sorts for McDonald, in his own eyes at least. One of the division’s most dangerous finishers, McDonald’s potent right hand has ended seven of his fights. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt has also submitted four foes. But his last two UFC foes (Chris Cariaso and Edwin Figueroa) have been stubborn, taking McDonald the distance and making him settle for judges’ decisions. That doesn’t sit well with McDonald, even though he said a shoulder and knuckle were badly injured before his Cariaso fight.

“Everyone has bad and good nights; that fight with Chris Cariaso was not a good night for me,” McDonald said. “I consider it a loss in my book. I think I should have been able to finish Chris Cariaso. I’ve only had two decisions in my life. I do not want to go to another decision. Alex Soto seems very well-rounded. Someone who is so well-rounded and aggressive, with a crazy gas tank, you can’t plan exactly what you’re going to do. So I really don’t have a gameplan. I just want to finish the fight and I’m going to go out there and play it by ear.”

Certain fighters, like Clay Guida and Wanderlei Silva, are adrenaline junkies who relish the energy of a frenzied live arena and fight to entertain fans. McDonald is different. A self-professed “perfectionist,” he is well aware that some people have branded him The Next Big Thing at 135 pounds. In fact, McDonald has at times let his mind wander, comparing himself to other phenoms who achieved incredible success in their early twenties such as Rory MacDonald (now 22), Erik Koch (23), light heavyweight champ Jon Jones (24) and featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo (25). McDonald concedes that envy and even jealousy have seeped into his thoughts from time to time, but he’s determined to rise above that kind of competitiveness.

“This is a little bit of the psychology behind Michael,” he says with a chuckle. “No one has ever asked me that but actually I do make those comparisons. It’s not something that I’m proud of, but it’s been a defect of mine. Growing up I always thought that when I did something I was special. And what made me special was never the fact that I was good. What made me special was the fact that I was good – AND I WAS YOUNG. Yeah, there are people that can do what I do, but no one can do it as young as I can.

“I still struggle with it occasionally. When I see other young people in competition that are good at something – I want to hate them. That’s my automatic reaction, because they are taking away from my specialness, so to speak. But now that I’m getting older and more mature I can stop and see that it means nothing. I have to keep a check on that. I should be learning no matter who the person is. I need to respect all these people and their awesomeness. So I’m learning to have a more appropriate mindset about it. I realize now that I’m not special because of what I do, or because someone tells me. I’m special because of the way God made me.”

Along the same lines, McDonald refuses to bear the heavy load of outside expectations. He has succumbed to that burden once before, two and a half years ago, when he lost his only pro fight via TKO to Cole Escovedo. A deep depression followed.

“I ran away and pushed everyone away,” he said. “It led me down a miserable road and I don’t ever want to do that again. Now I have a much healthier mindset about it. I’m not doing this for the people. If I can help people along the way then that’s great, but I’m not doing this for other people. I’m doing this because my God, my father, gave me a mission and this is what he put in front of my life.”

If you can’t already tell, fighting is not McDonald’s favorite topic. It’s his aforementioned ministry. In his mind, similar to No. 1 lightweight contender Benson Henderson, fighting simply gives him a large public platform to spread God’s message.

“A lot of people think that when I speak at church I’m going to talk about being a fighter and my successes, and I don’t. Because I’m not something special. I didn’t do something extraordinary. I ruined my life,” McDonald said. “I was miserable … I looked in the mirror one morning and I didn’t like who I saw. I always thought that I would be a good person when I grew up and I wasn’t. I hated my life. I became a liar. I had everyone fooled. I was a phony. I was a manipulating bastard. That was the main reason I hated myself. No one really knew me — I didn’t know me. That’s what I’ve been talking about in my testimony. I hated myself and didn’t really want to stay on this planet anymore. God took me at that point and he turned me into a good person. Now I get to talk about my screw-ups and God’s victories in my life. Fighting is not about me being the best, it’s not about me being rich. To me, it is my ministry right now.”

Our time is almost up. There is one more question for Young Man McDonald. What is the upside of being only 20 years old and days away from your third UFC fight?

“The upside … ummm…I guess the upside is knowing that I have a long ways to go until I’m the best I can be,” he said. “A lot of people in the organization have a very small window of opportunity to generate income from this. That’s not the case for me. I probably have 15 or more years left, give or take a few years. So I feel comfortable and I’m not in any rush to get the title or get to the top right now. Other fighters might be of a certain age so they’re in a rush and they need it soon; I don’t. I can be as patient as I want. I’m putting my money on the fact that Michael McDonald at 25 will be better than Michael McDonald at 20. So that is making my career go a lot smoother.”

Coming off back-to-back losses for the first time in his career, Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann looks to rebound at UFC 139 against Rick Story, a rugged wrestler who won’t back down if fisticuffs start flying.

“It sucks to have two losses on paper,” said Kampmann (17-5), a native of Denmark who resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, and trains at Xtreme Couture. “Especially my last fight, I thought I won. I beat the snot out of Diego (Sanchez). It sucks to get on the wrong side of a decision. In the Jake Shields fight I was disappointed in my own performance, even though you could make an argument that I won. When I fought Shields he kind of hugged me and humped my leg for most of the fight. But I’m looking forward and staying positive. I’m getting the win Saturday and that will put me right back up there.”

Story, a former collegiate wrestler, has triumphed in 12 of his past 14 fights. He is 6-2 in the UFC, including noteworthy wins over Thiago Alves and Johny Hendricks. Though he is known to bang when necessary, Story prefers to take opponents down and punish them on top. A key battle in the fight will be Story’s takedowns versus Kampmann’s defense; the Dane has stuffed 81 percent of his foes’ takedown attempts.

“He’s a good wrestler who comes in and he’s not scared to exchange punches. He can eat a shot, too,” Kampmann said. “So he’s definitely a game opponent. He’s very strong and fights southpaw, but I feel I can beat him standing and on the ground. Either way, I’m going to knock him out or submit him. I don’t want a judges’ decision. I just want to finish the fight and get a win. He’s tough, but he’s also beatable. Everybody’s beatable.”

Saturday night in San Jose, California, will mark Kampmann’s 13th foray inside the Octagon; he made his UFC debut back in 2006 and has notched eight wins since then, most notably defeating Carlos Condit, Thales Leites and Paulo Thiago.

It has been eight months since Kampmann last fought. In the interim, his wife gave birth to a son, Xander, now three months old.

“I spend my spare time with him,” Kampmann said. “I love it. It’s the greatest experience ever. You can’t describe it. You’ve got to have your own baby to know that feeling. No matter how bad your day goes, when your baby smiles at you it makes you happy.”

Becoming a parent tends to change a man’s perspective. But even with an extra mouth to feed, Kampmann doesn’t concern himself with trying to avoid three straight losses.

“I try not to focus on that. I don’t want to put more pressure on myself,” he said. “Just going into the Octagon and fighting is plenty of pressure already. So I don’t worry about stuff like that. I’m just focused on coming to win and beating Rick Story.”

Every UFC fighter, without exception, is asked to name his favorite technique. Only one of the 303 pro athletes on matchmaker Joe Silva’s roster answered “the punch to the face.”

That would be Mr. Stephan Bonnar. And the Indiana native’s response, intended in earnest, is entirely fitting. If any fighter epitomizes the take-one-to-give-one mentality, it is this Purdue University graduate, immortalized for what UFC president Dana White called a “lightning in a bottle” performance against Forrest Griffin in April 2005 that seared an unforgettable and indelible first impression on hundreds of thousands of people seeing the UFC for the first time.

Renowned for his toe-to-toe tendencies, Stephan Bonnar and his iron chin are 34 years old now. His body has endured the rigors of a 10-year pro career, with additional mileage on his body courtesy of Golden Gloves amateur boxing competitions. Has he ever considered switching to a less rugged style, something more cerebral and cautious that might expose him to less carnage and prolong his career? Dare he sprinkle a little more stick-and-move boxing and a lot less brawling into his game?

“No, not really,” Bonnar replied, noting that his coaches, Sergio Penha and Nick “OneKick” Blomgren have not encouraged him to become more methodical, either. “My coaches know that the uglier the fight gets, the more I get hit, the more I rise to the occasion and the better I fight. Sometimes that is what it takes to get it out of me. When I fought Rashad (Evans) he kept taking me down and playing jiu-jitsu on top. After the fight I just wished he would have started smashing me in the face a couple of times to light a fire under my a–. Then maybe I would have got (emotionally) up and made it a fight instead of playing jiu-jitsu. So sometimes I need to get into a really ugly fight to dig deep and draw the best out of myself. I hate to say it, but it’s the truth.”

Bonnar’s discovery that brawling is part of his DNA predates his MMA career. It was revealed to him while competing in the Chicago Golden Gloves, a prestigious amateur boxing tournament which he won twice. The achievement qualified him to compete in the Golden Gloves national tournament in 2004.

“I went to that tournament and most of those guys probably had between 60 and 100 fights,” he said. “I only had maybe a dozen boxing fights so I knew that I wasn’t going to beat those guys if I just go in there and make it a boxing game and try to outpoint them. I gotta make it ugly and beat them that way. Technique-wise these guys are better and more experienced than me, and faster and stronger, too. I was kind of small and I was fighting at super heavyweight so I just took ‘em to the well. I took ‘em to the well.”

In his first fight at nationals, Bonnar recalled, he was pitted against a fifth-ranked stud from New York.

“So I didn’t stand a chance,” Bonnar said. “He beat the s— out of me in that first round. He hit me with some good ones and tried to take me out of there. I remember walking back to my corner at the end of the first round and joking, ‘Do you think I got that round, coach?’

His coach wasn’t concerned, telling Bonnar, “You got a good jab, just trust your jab! Believe in yourself. You should be here!”

As the second round commenced, Bonnar was emboldened, particularly because he sensed his opponent might be tiring.

“So from there on I just jumped all over him and was aggressive,” Bonnar said. “In the second round I did better, even though he still won that round. In the third round I felt him weakening and I eventually got to him. I landed a perfect uppercut and he slumped into the ropes and then I jumped all over him and took him out.”

“My second fight really went exactly the same way.”

By the way, those three round wars happened on back-to-back days. How many tough guys could do that against elite competition – knock out two heavy favorites that beat on you for two rounds? Yet that has been the magical modus operandi for Bonnar, who has always countered “bigger, faster, stronger” foes with “braver, grittier, tougher.”

It is a style that bears some resemblance to that of Kyle Kingsbury (11-2, 1 No Contest), the former Arizona State University football player who happens to be Bonnar’s opponent this Saturday on the UFC 139 main card in San Jose, Calif. Kingsbury, winner of four straight in the UFC, is coming off a Fight of the Night slugfest victory over Fabio Maldonado.

“He’s a tough guy who can take a good punch and so can I. That’s our similarity,” said Bonnar (16-7).

The matchup between 6-feet-4-inch 205-pounders has three rounds of mutual carnage written all over it.

“Yes, I will be chasing a bonus; I’m going for Fight of the Night. I’m not going to fight a smart fight – I’m going to try to put people on the edge of their seats,” said Bonnar, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who has never been knocked out or submitted (his only two losses have been stoppages due to cuts). “I mean, if I can catch him in a submission then I’ll take that. But if I lose the fight, and get Fight of the Night, I’ll make more than if I just win the fight boringly so (laughs) … that’s part of my gameplan.”

Winner of two straight (over Igor Pokrajac and Krzysztof Soszynski), Bonnar hasn’t fought in over 11 months due to tearing a medial collateral ligament in his knee months back. He also devoted time to a side business venture, which involves him and a childhood friend, Tom Scully, creating high-end artwork and T-shirts.

“MMA T-shirts are just too dark, it’s all just demons and skulls and horns and wings. That’s not what MMA is to me,” Bonnar said, explaining how he detected a niche in the market that was not being served. “A lot of us are just normal guys with good senses of humor. So we wanted to do something funny so we started making “Punch Buddy” shirts for a lot of fighters. We have GSP, me, Brock, Forrest, Rich Franklin, Melvin Guillard, Miguel (Torres), Matt Mitrione. We just did Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone. We just finished a sketch of Frank Mir and we’re going to do a (Bruce) Buffer, too. So it’s the lighter side, funny cartoon versions of the fighters. In addition to that we’ve been doing event t-shirts.

“It’s something I really enjoy. It brings me joy to create something and see it come to life. To be honest with you, if your life is just fighting, and you’re inside a gym twice a day, it gets depressing. That (business) sparked some life into me. It’s fun.”

Among Bonnar and Scully’s creations (with the help of skilled cartoon sketch artists), in Bonnar’s words:

•    “Brocked and Loaded: Let’s have a big Paul Bunyon looking Brock with a plaid shirt on firing a shotgun in the air and dragging Babe the blue ox around.

•    Georges St-Pierre “Well he’s not a trash talker. He’s a gentleman, Gentleman George. Let’s have him in his gi, wearing a bandana and a little halo and a birdie flying over his head, pushing a beaten up opponent into the hospital in a wheelchair.”

•    Frank Mir, with wife Jenny’s input: “Everyone makes fun of his hair and thinks he gets perms because of his curly hair. So why not do something with Frank with a bunch of curlers in his hair like Big Perm from Friday in an ice cream truck?”

There are no plans to design a Kyle Kingsbury t-shirt, only plans to beat him on Saturday.

“I just want to go out there and beat Kyle Kingsbury. I’m as strong as I’ve ever been, in the best shape I’ve ever been, and ready to push the pace,” Bonnar said. “I just have to do what I always do. Just bring it.”

ANAHEIM, November 12 – 64 seconds. That is all it took for Junior dos Santos to leap into the history books and become the first man to defeat UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez, the relentless Mexican-American fighter who until Saturday night hadn’t lost a single round in his five-year pro career. The dramatic knockout delivered an exclamation point to the UFC’s grand introduction to primetime viewers watching the title bout for free on the FOX television network (many of them possibly discovering the sport for the first time).

“I have no words to say what I’m feeling. It’s amazing, my life,” a teary-eyed dos Santos (14-1) said in the Octagon after being fitted with his new championship belt by UFC president Dana White. “I want to thank all my friends and family. I have a lot of good people around me. Thank you very much.” See post-fight interview with Junior Dos Santos

Dos Santos added that he entered the fight less than 100 percent, indicating he was perhaps hampered by an injury during training camp. But it didn’t matter in the least. Velasquez fired three leg kicks and dos Santos answered with two hard body shots. Then the heavyweight division’s fastest and most heavy-handed puncher delivered a thunderous overhand right that Cain perhaps never saw coming. The firecracker of a punch hit Velasquez around or behind his ear, dropping the champ to the canvas and with no sense of his whereabouts. Dos Santos pounced immediately, landing hard shots as Velasquez began to turtle over to his stomach rather than trying to regain his guard or intelligently defend himself. At that moment, a new era had been ushered in.

“It kind of messed up my equilibrium,” said Velasquez (9-1), the overwhelming crowd favorite. “He has a lot of power. I waited too much for him… So hat’s off to him tonight.” See post-fight interview with Cain Velasquez

Velasquez also felt as if he had let down his fans, many of them proud Mexican-Americans like himself.

“Sorry to all the fans, my family and friends,” he said. “I disappointed you. I will come back and I will get this belt back, for sure.”

The bout had marked the fallen champ’s first fight in 13 months; he had surgery on a torn rotator cuff but had said recently that he felt strong and ready for his most dangerous foe yet.

Dos Santos, meanwhile, is now 8-0 in the UFC and hasn’t lost in four years. The former toy store operator, who grew up poor in his native Brazil and sold ice cream on street corners to survive, has a feeling he may not have seen the last of Velasquez inside of the cage. In fact, the soft-spoken 27-year-old conceded he had battled fear and doubt leading up to the fight.

“Cain Velasquez was for sure my toughest opponent,” dos Santos said. “I was afraid to fight with him because he’s very tough. And I was not 100 percent for this fight so I was very scared.”