While the heavyweight division hardly ever sees a fight go the full time before someone gets knocked out or submitted, heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos has the right mindset coming into UFC 155 to KO his opponent, Cain Velasquez.
The familiarity between these two will give each of these fighters an edge coming into this bout, but leaning on that knowledge will not be what wins this matchup.
This fight isn’t about redemption; this is about the UFC World heavyweight Title.
Velasquez was embarrassed on national television the last time these two men squared off, and the former champion will look at this fight as his chance to bring his name back into the good graces of the fans in attendance and the shot-callers in the UFC.
The defending champion has a different outlook.
Dos Santos told ESPN about how he doesn’t view this as a fight as a rematch and how he prepared for this in-ring war:
I think it’s more a rematch for Cain Velasquez than it is for me. For me it’s another fight, and every fight…I take my next fight as my toughest fight ever. So I get very well prepared for all my fights, [and] I that’s how I am now. I am 100 percent [ready] to go there and keep my belt.
As hard as it is to imagine fighting without any emotion, the key to a great MMA fighter is the ability to control their emotions in the Octagon and use them to harness and disperse their power.
When a fighter has vengeance on their mind or is fighting angry, they begin to let their form slip and start to leave themselves open for the potential knockout blow that could be coming at any second.
Velasquez will come at Dos Santos like a bat out of hell, but the calculated demeanor of the current champion will not only weather the former champion’s storm, it will help Dos Santos find the opening Velasquez leaves and knock him out in spectacular fashion.
The UFC star treats all of his fights the same way, and it’s no wonder why they all end the same way, too. Dos Santos is a knockout machine, and he’ll add another to his resume.
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