Junior dos Santos will make his first heavyweight title defense against UFC veteran Frank Mir on May 26 at UFC 146.
Dos Santos has predominately faced fighters who like to stand and trade punches. His last last four opponents have been Cain Velasquez, Shane Carwin, Roy Nelson and Gabriel Gonzaga.
Mir is enjoying a rebirth of sorts of his long UFC career. This fight against dos Santos will mark Mir’s 20th trek into the Octagon. Mir is 14-5 over those 20 fights.
The sight and sound of Mir’s last submission against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is still fresh in the minds of many MMA fans.
Personally, I had to delete the fight from my DVR after watching the replay a couple of times. There is nothing on television that makes me cringe more than seeing a limb snapped. Envision a kid peeking through their fingers while watching a scary movie and that’s how I looked watching the replay of Mir breaking Nogueira’s arm.
Surely I can’t be alone in that.
Forget about you and I, what about dos Santos? Is he going to have a quick trigger when it comes to tapping out against Mir?
Dos Santos is an elite power striker, there is no debating that. He also has a ground game that is solid enough to help him stay on his feet with Mir.
If Mir is able to weather the storm of punches by dos Santos and get the fight to the ground, he should be able to get the champion into a submissive position.
As soon as dos Santos feels his arm being cranked in the wrong direction, one would expect him to tap based off of what Mir has done to previous opponents.
Who could blame him?
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