On Dec. 13, 2014, it will have been 420 days since the last time we saw former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos take the Octagon. It will have been 420 days since we last saw Bruce Buffer yell dos Santos’ name while the heavyweight makes that mean face before using all his might to lay down the gauntlet.
It will also have been 420 days since we saw him get absolutely clobbered at the hands of the baddest man on Earth for the second time in as many head-to-head matchups.
Despite what the rankings say, dos Santos is the best heavyweight on the planet not named Cain Velasquez and that’s a problem. A really, really big problem.
Dana White and friends had a little more than a year to synthesize some heavyweights for Velasquez to step inside of the Octagon with. They couldn’t sway Brock Lesnar to leave professional wrestling and Vince McMahon’s money behind. They couldn’t seem to find anybody that Alistair Overeem was capable of beating. There was also Travis Browne, who knocked out pretty much every contender the UFC could think of before falling victim to a rejuvenated Fabricio Werdum at UFC on Fox 11 in April.
Werdum has looked unstoppable since his return to the UFC cage. But if history tells us anything, Velasquez has a knack for stopping the unstoppable. Surrounded by what will probably be 22,300 of his countrymen at the Arena Ciudad de Mexico in Mexico City, there’s little chance the champion relinquishes the crown.
It seems inevitable at this point that dos Santos and Velasquez will have to square off for a fourth time to keep the heavyweight waters flowing. But the former titleholder might need a little bit more than fate to punch his ticket for a third time.
As obvious of an answer as it may seem, dos Santos needs to win in his return to the Octagon. He needs to win big.
He’ll need to show the UFC brass that Stipe Miocic—a heavyweight contender who’s demonstrated his dominance against the likes of Roy Nelson, Gabriel Gonzaga and Fabio Maldonado—is no match for the former titleholder. He’ll need to show them that Miocic’s above-average MMA boxing and uncommon heavyweight pace are simply not enough to contend with the true heavyweight contender.
He’ll then need to step into the cage and remind White and company of Andrei Arlovski’s fragile chin before proving to the world that “Hapa” Browne simply doesn’t have enough to clash with heavyweight royalty. And with Velasquez’s injury-ridden history, it wouldn’t be implausible to see dos Santos take part in a bout for the interim title at some point in his journey back to the throne.
In other words, he’ll need to put the UFC in no position to say “No.” He’s got to show them that, regardless of what sort of history he’s got with the champion, he’s the only dude capable of staying alive for five rounds inside of the cage with Velasquez.
There’s no reason to assume history won’t repeat itself in Velasquez vs. dos Santos IV— the champion is simply too much for any fighter to bear. But until some other guy decides to step up, we’ll just have to settle for Velasquez vs. dos Santos V, VI and VII.
Kristian Ibarra is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. He also serves as the sports editor at San Diego State University’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec. Follow him on Twitter at @Kristian_Ibarra for all things MMA.
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