A UFC heavyweight contender was born at UFC on Fox 13.
A former champion was exposed.
In the night’s main event from Phoenix, Junior dos Santos met his equal in Stipe Miocic.
Miocic took the fight to dos Santos early and often, cracking the former champion with hard punches and avoiding any serious punishment himself until the championship rounds.
Dos Santos did not falter. He did not fall. He’s the toughest heavyweight in the UFC, and Miocic was not the man to put him away. Still, the punishment was significant.
Cigano‘s face began to swell after Round 1. And by the end of Round 5, he looked like a terrible boardwalk caricature of Rocky Dennis. It was ugly.
But he won the fight.
Showing his heart once more, dos Santos stood tall, fired back and landed enough shots of his own to convince all three judges cageside he deserved the win.
Do I agree? Nope.
Was it close? Yep.
It’s hard to be outraged about this decision, as it was a very close fight (but the two 49-46 scorecards for dos Santos are outrageous).
Still, if you factor in the expectations coming into this bout, dos Santos dropped the ball a little in even letting it be a close fight. He was supposed to be the 1-A to UFC heavyweight champ Cain Velasquez’s 1-B. But now it’s clear he’s two, if not three.
Velasquez remains a class above.
What We’ll Remember About This Fight
Miocic and dos Santos came to play.
While heavyweights are often scorned for their lack of conditioning and well-rounded skill sets, these two went hard for 25 minutes, mostly striking but also periodically showing off their grappling skills.
This fight will almost certainly take home Fight of the Night honors, and it will be a well-earned distinction for these two men.
What we’ll ultimately remember most, though, is dos Santos’ decline. This was not the man who blitzed the heavyweight division just three years ago. This was not the man who earned the title in 2011.
This was someone else—someone much flatter; someone much less impressive.
What We Learned About dos Santos
UFC heavyweight champion Velasquez ruined dos Santos.
Despite being more than a year removed from his most recent fight with Velasquez, dos Santos appears worn down, ragged and burnt out.
That’s amazing (and sad).
Cigano is only 30 years old, but he moved like a much older man against Miocic Saturday evening.
The heavyweight champion took years off dos Santos’ fighting life. While it wouldn’t be surprising to watch dos Santos linger in the top 10 of the heavyweight division for the foreseeable future, it’s tough to picture him ascending to the top ever again.
The win over Miocic might net him a fight against the winner of Velasquez vs. Fabricio Werdum. But if Velasquez wins, I don’t know how a fourth fight between the two makes any sense right now.
Dos Santos is just one fight removed from the massive beatdown he took from the champ at UFC 166, and his fight with Miocic gave us no reason to think he’d fare any better once more. In fact, it did the opposite.
To eliminate the possibility of Velasquez vs. dos Santos IV altogether, match No. 3-ranked heavyweight Travis Browne with Cigano, and let them work out who deserves to fight for the title.
What We Learned About Miocic
Miocic‘s development is still upon us. He’s getting better. He’s evolving. He’s growing.
And that’s scary for the UFC’s heavyweight division.
He’s light and quick on his feet, and his punches are nasty. He can also eat a bomb from arguably the hardest puncher in the division (dos Santos).
Stefan Struve, who lost earlier in the evening to Alistair Overeem, caught Miocic earlier in the Ohioans career, giving him the only blemish on his professional record. But it appears Miocic has corrected any flaws in his game and taken an enormous leap forward.
Good for him. He’s ready for title contention. Even if the judges don’t think so.
What’s Next for dos Santos?
As mentioned above, dos Santos probably shouldn’t fight Velasquez again in the near future.
If, however, Werdum wins, a rematch against dos Santos could be fun.
Cigano starched Werdum with an uppercut in his UFC debut some five years ago, but Werdum made massive improvements since then. A rematch is super-intriguing. If Werdum wins, this is the fight to make.
If Werdum loses, it has to be dos Santos vs. Browne. Cigano needs to prove he’s ready for Velasquez before we tumble down that road again.
What’s Next for Miocic?
Miocic will not contend for the UFC heavyweight title in his next fight. That’s a shame, because he earned the chance Saturday evening at UFC on Fox 13 in my eyes.
Where Velasquez vs. dos Santos IV makes no sense, Velasquez vs. Miocic I sounds incredible.
Miocic vs. Werdum also sounds incredible.
Miocic is the less experienced, fresher fighter of the two, and plenty of matchups await him moving forward.
Judges exist, though, and Miocic did not win in Phoenix. He lost, and he’ll take a tumble down the rankings.
Give him Mark Hunt, who just lost to Werdum at UFC 180, and see who deserves to stick around in the top five of the division.
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