Junior Dos Santos is the top heavyweight in the UFC and what seems like an unstoppable force.
In his next fight, he will face Alistair Overeem, who will give him his biggest test when it comes to striking, as the Dutch kickboxer tries to stop the champion’s boxing.
In many ways, he can remind MMA fans of a dominant Wladimir Klitschko. But when he faces Overeem, it might be one of the two that boxing fans have seen through the years.
I believe that Overeem’s striking is more complete then Dos Santos’ boxing, but that is just a personal opinion.
It very well could end with Dos Santos knocking out the challenger or proving that he has a better ground game than fans expected.
There is also a chance that he will not be able to handle the kicks of Overeem and get beaten that way.
Either way represents a part of Wladimir Klitschko’s career. One part of Klitschko’s career is one of dominance, but the part before that is one filled with devastating losses that taught him how to be a better fighter.
Now Klitschko is a current champion, but he faced defeat as a title holder to two people: Corrie Sanders and Lamon Brewster.
In the Sanders fight Klitschko just got caught by a powerful puncher.
In the fight with Brewster he spent too much energy too quickly and got beaten. Dos Santos has to be wary that he doesn’t make the same mistake.
Junior Dos Santos was exhausted after battering Roy Nelson for three rounds. When he wasn’t able to knock out his opponent, he was unable to conserve his energy.
The same thing happened to Klitschko when he fought Brewster, but after the fight he learned how to pace himself in fights and not looking for the knockout. The only problem is that it made his fights boring and predictable.
This is the one place where Junior Dos Santos is different. The young heavyweight will continue to be dynamic in the cage, lose or win. He will just learn to implement more skills as he fights instead of sticking to his boxing.
It all comes down to the Overeem fight. That match will tell fans exactly where Dos Santos is in terms of growth.
He is either shaping up to be a world champion fighter who has a lesson to learn and mature from or he is going to show fans that he is better then they realized.
And if he does win or learns from the mistake he may become like Klitschko in another sense. A champion who the fans see as having no challenges and who face little struggle in their fights.
Hopefully, that is never the case.
Matthew Hemphill writes for the MMA and professional wrestling portion of Bleacher Report. He also hosts a blog elbaexiled.blogspot.com which focuses on books, music, comic books, video games, film, and generally anything that could be related to the realms of nerdom.
Read more MMA news on BleacherReport.com