Cain Velasquez closed the book on his rivalry with Junior dos Santos at UFC 166, wiping the floor with him during a dominant victory on Saturday.
After splitting the first two bouts, Velasquez broke the stalemate with a convincing win over his foe…
Cain Velasquez closed the book on his rivalry with Junior dos Santos at UFC 166, wiping the floor with him during a dominant victory on Saturday.
After splitting the first two bouts, Velasquez broke the stalemate with a convincing win over his foe on Saturday night. He won via TKO during the fifth round after thoroughly controlling the fight throughout its course.
According to UFC.com, he converted 274 strikes in 378 attempts, for an efficient success rate of 73 percent. Dos Santos hit on just 44 percent of his opportunities, landing 62 out of 140 strikes. Velasquez also secured two takedowns, eliminating any doubt over which heavyweight is the superior competitor.
For the second straight time, his aggressive style proved too much for Dos Santos to handle. But Dos Santos offered a better description of the evening, per ESPN.com’s Brett Okamoto.
“He’s very—what can I say? He beat me up.”
Yes, he did.
Now that the champion has upped the head-to-head scorecard to 2-1, it seems like an appropriate time for each fighter to move on to different challengers.
Bad things happen when stories are dragged on for too long. Ask any Star Wars fans for their thoughts on the prequels. Try to see if anyone acknowledges The Godfather 3’s existence.
Instead, these fighters should take a page from Christopher Nolan, who ended his Batman films after the third installment. He could have made 10 more of them if he so desired, and many more new iterations will probably spawn during the next decade.
But he ended the series on his terms, defying the odds with a poignant ending to the trilogy, whereas most movies would have stumbled. We can now look back on those films fondly without remembering a weird fourth one where Dane Cook plays The Joker and ruins everything.
As for Velasquez, he has nothing more to prove after getting his hand raised twice. While Dos Santos offers fierce competition, it will appear as if the champion is playing it safe against an opponent he knows he can defeat.
While Dos Santos may relish the chance to even the series at two apiece, he can’t afford to take another beating. “Cigano” must return to the win column as soon as he can, and Velasquez is rolling too much to let that happen against his adversary.
The two rivals have had a great run, but it’s time to move on. An entire field of fighters with different styles and sizes offers new ring partners for both men. They can stand to freshen things up to avoid turning this exciting rivalry into just another stale showdown.
Gilbert Melendez and Diego Sanchez fought a three-round instant classic at UFC 166 this past weekend.
In a fight that produced two knockdowns, countless flurries and copious amounts of blood, both men displayed indelible heart and courage.
…
Gilbert Melendez and Diego Sanchez fought a three-round instant classic at UFC 166 this past weekend.
In a fight that produced two knockdowns, countless flurries and copious amounts of blood, both men displayed indelible heart and courage.
Just to watch was to witness something special.
UFC commentator Joe Rogan called the fight the “new greatest fight of all-time” during the pay-per-view broadcast.
UFC President Dana White, a well-known talkative character, was nearly left speechless at the UFC post-fight press conference, calling it “the fight of the friggin’ I don’t know what.”
The MMA community exploded with youthful exuberance, smattering Twitter, Facebook and forums with every imaginable metaphor and hyperbole.
But now that the dust has settled, and we have had time to collect our thoughts from UFC 166, was “El Nino” vs. “The Dream” the greatest fight of all time?
Well, that all depends on what you consider a great fight.
Ask 10 people what makes a great fight, and you will get 10 different answers.
For some, the bout must occur in the UFC, or a title must be on the line, or history should be made.
But for all of the many stipulations, one constant seems apparent: Fans enjoy a wild back-and-forth war; technical talent be damned.
The bout between Melendez and Sanchez, while entertaining, displayed laughable, almost pathetic stand-up technique at points.
During exchanges on their feet, both men kept their heads still, balanced in a squat stance and threw looping hooks from their hips.
Is that really why we enjoy MMA though: To witness two men abandon technique and launch into a physical tornado of arms and legs?
Better question, is such a fight even a good representation of mixed martial arts?
To put it simply: No, it is not.
Yes, bouts like Chan Sung Jung vs. Leonard Garcia I or Dan Henderson vs. Mauricio Rua are entertaining. But where they succeed in violence, they lack in martial arts technique.
When anyone views a professional fight, they should expect elite talent and technical superiority, especially in the UFC.
Great MMA fights are a vivid depiction of two individuals with the highest level of ability squaring off for three to five rounds.
At any point during the bout, viewers should be able to witness premier head movement, arm placement, footwork, and punch and kick technique.
Recall for a moment, fights like Benson Henderson vs. Anthony Pettis I or Georges St. Pierre vs. Carlos Condit. The bouts held all of the drama as Meledez and Sanchez, but on a far superior technical backdrop.
Between Henderson’s takedowns or Pettis’ hooks, St. Pierre’s jab or Condit’s kicks, there is an unmatched technical ability one should come to expect from elite MMA athletes.
So while most enjoyed the war between Melendez and Sanchez, we should reserve the title of “greatest MMA fight” for a bout that displays great MMA.
Now that we’ve all come down from the meth-like high that UFC 166 provided, let’s get down to some business, shall we? Fans and pundits of the sport alike have previously hailed our armchair matchmakers as “The most sagacious, in-depth and intellectually gratifying reading experiences in all of mixed martial arts reporting,” so let’s hope we can work our magic for Saturday’s biggest winners. Besides, AMC FearFest starts soon and we will be checking out for the rest of this month once that gets underway.
Daniel Cormier: To hell with who Cormier should be matched up with next, I want to be matched up with Cormier’s kickboxing coach and learn the art of the turning side check kick, STAT. In all seriousness, we’d like to see the former Olympian matched up with fellow grappling stud Phil Davis next. Davis is fresh off a split decision over Lyoto Machida at UFC 163, and if Cormier is as insistent on cutting to LHW as he seems, Davis would make for a perfect litmus test.
Now that we’ve all come down from the meth-like high that UFC 166 provided, let’s get down to some business, shall we? Fans and pundits of the sport alike have previously hailed our armchair matchmakers as “The most sagacious, in-depth and intellectually gratifying reading experiences in all of mixed martial arts reporting,” so let’s hope we can work our magic for Saturday’s biggest winners. Besides, AMC FearFest starts soon and we will be checking out for the rest of this month once that gets underway.
Daniel Cormier: To hell with who Cormier should be matched up with next, I want to be matched up with Cormier’s kickboxing coach and learn the art of the turning side check kick, STAT. In all seriousness, we’d like to see the former Olympian matched up with fellow grappling stud Phil Davis next. Davis is fresh off a split decision over Lyoto Machida at UFC 163, and if Cormier is as insistent on cutting to LHW as he seems, Davis would make for a perfect litmus test.
Gilbert Melendez: Either T.J. Grant or Khabib Nurmagomedov. Grant’s already injured his way out of a title shot, and with Josh Thomson taking on Anthony Pettis next, a fight between Melendez (who lost a razor-thin split decision to former champ Ben Henderson in his previous fight) and Grant would make for a sure-to-be slugfest that would help determine the true #1 contender in an already stacked division. Now that we’ve seen how Melendez deals with an extrovert-lunatic like Sanchez, it will be interesting to see how he handles an introverted, Ed Gein-esque lunatic like Grant. Because you just know that Grant has robbed a grave or two in his day. He’s got that look in his eyes.
Of course, now that Nurmagomedov is farmboy slamming top contenders like Pat Healy and calling for title shots in his post-fight interviews, a fight with the former Strikeforce champion could be the validating fight he’s been looking for. His name still doesn’t carry the kind of power that Melendez’s does, but a win over the Russian would solidify “El Nino’s” place as a future title challenger.
Gabriel Gonzaga: While watching UFC 166 at a particularly distressing Buffalo Wild Wings in Skokie, Illinois last weekend, I overheard a man known only as “Possum” refer to Gonzaga as “a real Jekyll and Hyde” fighter. It was perhaps the most astute fighter analysis I have ever heard. Thankfully, Gonzaga has been a lot more Hyde than Jekyll in his second UFC run, putting together four stoppage wins against just one defeat. With that in mind, we think the UFC should give Gonzaga another shot at glory against an upper-echelon heavyweight and see how he fares. Although Stipe Miocic is basically the only guy who fits the above criteria and doesn’t currently have a fight booked, we think the winner of the Frank Mir/Alistair Overeem fight would make for a better matchup. Our prediction: Pain.
John Dodson: There are really only two options available for the hardest hitting flyweight in the division: You either give him the Lineker-Harris winner or the Jorgensen-McCall winner. Or you give him another title shot. Or you give him another UFC newbie to beat on and kill some time. OK, so there’s four options. But only two of them are sensible, so take your pick.
What do you think, Potato Nation? Do these matchups intrigue you in the slightest? And who would you like to see UFC 166′s losers face next?
The fight game is a dangerous business, as former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos can attest. Following his bout with current champ Cain Velasquez Saturday night at UFC 166, dos Santos was visibly battered and beaten before the fight-ending …
The fight game is a dangerous business, as former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos can attest. Following his bout with current champ Cain Velasquez Saturday night at UFC 166, dos Santos was visibly battered and beaten before the fight-ending TKO in the fifth round.
Apparently, he is somewhat unclear on how that happened.
According to Combate.com (via Fighters Only), dos Santos remembers very little of the fight with Velasquez, and actually thought the bout ended in Round 2. His corner believes that he made it to Round 5 “on autopilot.”
The fight came less than an hour after Diego Sanchez worried fans with an incoherent post-fight speech following a 15-minute brawl with former Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez. It had some wondering aloud if the original “Ultimate Fighter” may be showing signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
JDS rocked Velasquez almost immediately after the start of the bout. After that, however, Velasquez dominated the fight, outworking the Brazilian with nonstop dirty boxing and ground-and-pound. Velasquez landed 274 total strikes (123 significant) by the time the fight ended.
While alarming, this sort of revelation isn’t unheard of in MMA.
Dos Santos’ team basically repeated what former UFC middleweight champ Rich Franklin discussed following his UFC 147 bout with Wanderlei Silva. Per MMA Fighting, Franklin stated after the fight, “When that kind of stuff happens, you remember bits and pieces…my coach told me not to get greedy, to pick my punches. I thought I did a good job of that. I was operating on autopilot.”
The fight was the third run-in between Velasquez and dos Santos. In their first fight, “Cigano” scored a big upset victory by landing a hard right hand and finishing the fight in just over a minute. The second bout was radically different, with Velasquez repeatedly scoring big takedowns and landing a bevy of strikes to reclaim his heavyweight strap.
The third fight was essentially identical to the second, with the only major difference being that dos Santos was finished in Round 5.
One hundred and three years ago America was treated to “The Fight of the Century.”
Jack Johnson defended his heavyweight crown against the only man to have retired with that title, Jim Jeffries. The ungodly power of the challenger proved wort…
One hundred and three years ago America was treated to “The Fight of the Century.”
Jack Johnson defended his heavyweight crown against the only man to have retired with that title, Jim Jeffries. The ungodly power of the challenger proved worthless as the savvier champion smothered him in clinches, breaking only to deliver a flurry of blows before re-engaging. Jeffries simply had no answer.
Rare is the occasion on which the gap between the champion and his top-ranked contender is so broad and so harsh.
Yet after bearing witness to Cain Velasquez‘s massacre of Junior dos Santos at UFC 166, I find myself recalling Jack London’s account of the Johnson-Jeffries bout: It was not a case of too much Velasquez, but of all Velasquez.
Easily we forget when one man loses so decisively that both are very human. There were merits and flaws to both performances; the list of each man’s strategic vices and virtues simply amounted to Velasquez winning and doing so emphatically.
With that in mind, let us review the fight and the methods that Velasquez used to stifle the Brazilian puncher.
A Man in the Rigging
What was evident throughout the fight was that Junior dos Santos can stop Velasquez from taking him down; he stifled numerous takedown attempts and fought back valiantly. Dos Santos used the fence to hold himself up and to allow himself to attempt to break away from Velasquez while the latter attempted to get him to the floor.
Improvements in wrestling and ground game didn’t take away the issue of Junior being beaten up while neutralizing these facets of the game.
The fence served as Dos Santos’ safety net: keeping him upright in the face of Velasquez’s grappling, but it served as much to ensnare him. Along the fence Dos Santos was hard to get off of his feet, but he had little means of offense.
By pressing Dos Santos into the fence, Velasquez was able to flatten out Dos Santos’ boxing stance, destroying his means of generating his numbing punch. Meanwhile Velasquez, with his head underneath of Dos Santos’ and with his feet slightly staggered and driving into the fence, was able to land with weighty blows.
Dos Santos did find a small measure of joy in striking with his back to the cage, borrowing from Carlos Condit the strategy of clipping his opponent with an elbow whenever he could. It was refreshing to see Dos Santos rely on something other than his hands, and the elbows certainly gave Cain reason to be wary each time a small space was created between the two fighters.
Nevertheless, Dos Santos struggled to break from these clinches and more often than not was trapped against the fence for extended periods.
Fighting in the Breaks
Dos Santos’ plan wasn’t a secret; he wanted to strike Velasquez during his approach out in the centre of the cage. We have discussed before how often Velasquez eats strikes on his way in.
Rather than sticking to the retreating counter jab that served him so poorly in their last bout, Dos Santos threw his right straight much more readily in this bout and landed well with it on a few occasions. He also showed a decent left hook from time to time.
Unfortunately Junior dos Santos doesn’t have different gears and can only fight at one intensity; each time he missed a punch the force with which he threw it would almost turn him around. This gave Cain more than enough opportunity to move in on Dos Santos and start making his life very difficult indeed.
It is hardly worth harping on about how little Dos Santos would have to offer either Klitschko brother in a boxing match, but the UFC 166 main event drove home an important point about boxing that I think we tend to forget in MMA and even kickboxing.
Head Position is Everything
In professional boxing, after each combination or counter is completed, evasive action must be taken to avoid a counter punch. Professional boxers spend rounds on the double-end bag and on the mitts with their coaches to drill this in.
When you see a fighter throwing himself off balance as he punches, as Junior often did, or failing to take any kind of evasive action after a punch, you must understand that he is toeing the line of calamity.
When Velasquez hurt Dos Santos with an overhand right, it was almost identical to the first bout. Junior would throw his own punch and then just stop. Because Dos Santos failed to move his head or get behind his lead shoulder, he was wide open for the Velasquez swing that followed.
Many fighters in MMA and kickboxing who have a reputation for skill with their hands suffer from the same flaw. Ray Sefo, for instance, had some of the sharper boxing in K-1, yet his brief boxing career showed exactly the same thing.
As Sefo parried a jab and attempted his counter left hook, which worked a treat in kickboxing, he found himself being force fed his opponent’s right hand. I talk about “closing the door” with the left hook and how it keeps a fighter relatively safe from the opponent’s right hand (more on this from the Melendez-Sanchez bout later in the week), but if the fighter does not recognize the purpose of closing the door and make sure that his shoulder is protecting him, he will still be struck.
Head position and movement is not just important in boxing range, however. It is vital in wrestling and ground fighting as well. Cain Velasquez was able to absolutely dominate the clinch portion of the fight because by getting his head underneath of Dos Santos’, he could keep the Brazilian pressed flat against the fence with little room to move.
This is something that is becoming more and more commonplace in MMA. Fighters are taking an underhook on one side, pushing their opponent to the fence and getting their head underneath their opponent’s. This leaves the pushing fighter in a stance that is staggered enough to generate power on punches with their free hand, while their opponent is pinned in place.
In addition to the old underhook, head fight and punch technique, Cain showed brilliant curved knees and decent elbows.
Perhaps the most interesting point that this bout raised in my mind was the grey area that surrounds jockeying for head position. Both heavyweights fought diligently for head position but clashed heads numerous times as a result.
The line between jumping swiftly into a clinch while looking for head position and the act of butting as one closes the gap is certainly a blurred one. Seeing the swelling on both men’s faces after the bout one can not help but wonder how much came from the head fight.
With that said, neither of these fighters is a dirty fighter, simply savvy. For his part, Dos Santos was doing a good job of driving his hand into Velasquez’s throat as he tried to create space from the clinches, and it was not uncommon to see his fingers stray into Velasquez’s eyes. Velasquez took this well and has his eyes closed a surprising amount of the time when he is head fighting anyway.
The Tragedy of the Trilogy
The first tragedy of this rushed trilogy is that Junior dos Santos showed genuine improvement. He fought off the takedown attempts and looked to land his right hand much more aggressively than in their second meeting.
The difference between the two men is that Dos Santos is predictable.
Where Velasquez uses the same entry to the clinch almost constantly, his overall tactics throughout the bout vary. Velasquez can look for the takedown or he can smash his opponent along the fence, or he can light them up as they try to stop him; he has a complete bag of tricks.
Conversely, Junior Dos Santos is a very skilled but limited fighter. He excels in one area of the fight, the striking game, and even there he refuses to use anything but his boxing for the most part.
Furthermore Dos Santos is not good at moving around the cage, backing straight onto the fence before inevitably attempting to circle out to his right. Between his last two bouts with Velasquez and the bout with Mark Hunt in the middle, Dos Santos has eaten dozens of left hooks in this way.
Dos Santos would do well to watch Daniel Cormier‘s bout with Roy Nelson to see circling out done right. Cormier was rarely along the fence, but when he was he would fake going out one way until he sensed a reaction, then dodge out the other, while moving his head. Against Roy Nelson one could circle away from his right all night, but Cormier showed he was comfortable to circle either way and keep Nelson guessing. Dos Santos has none of that savvy.
The second tragedy of this trilogy is that we will forever be forced to listen to uneducated fans claiming the outcome of the first bout was the result of a “lucky punch.” In truth the lucky punch does not exist. In their first bout, Dos Santos did everything he normally does and Velasquez fell for it. That’s all there is to it.
Unfortunately history likes to remember the winner of a trilogy and make excuses for the odd match out.
Matt Serra will likely never get the credit he deserves for his repeated right hooks to the body before winging his right hand over the top of Georges St. Pierre’s sagging hands. Junior Dos Santos will probably never get the credit he deserves for drawing Cain into jabbing across himself and landing the right hand over the top just the same.
When fans see an overhand, all they can think of is luck.
The final tragedy of this great trilogy between the two top fighters at heavyweight is that it is already over.
Were there ever a rivalry that I would loved to have seen played out over years, with each fighter being forced to take several fights before another title shot, it is this one. Giving Dos Santos just one bout between his loss to Velasquez and their third bout was obviously not enough to see much improvement. To have him fight against someone completely unrelated to Velasquez, a one-dimensional striker, served only to build hype and not to develop Dos Santos’ skills or career path at all.
Pick up Jack’s eBooks Advanced Striking and Elementary Striking from his blog, Fights Gone By.
Cain Velasquez may have won another battle at UFC 166, but the war is far from over in his ongoing rivalry with Junior dos Santos.
Saturday night’s heavyweight title bout proposed an ending to the trilogy of Velasquez vs. Dos Santos. After gettin…
Cain Velasquez may have won another battle at UFC 166, but the war is far from over in his ongoing rivalry with Junior dos Santos.
Saturday night’s heavyweight title bout proposed an ending to the trilogy of Velasquez vs. Dos Santos. After getting knocked out in the first fight, Velasquez has bounced back to dominate Dos Santos in the last two rematches.
But is this rivalry truly over?
In MMA, there is a hidden notion that fighters should no longer compete against each another once someone wins two fights in a championship rivalry. A contender will typically either change weight classes or play the role of gatekeeper if he already has two losses to the champ.
ChaelSonnen moved to light heavyweight after losing two fights to Anderson Silva. Frankie Edgar dropped down to featherweight after being defeated in back-to-back bouts with Benson Henderson. Both Sonnen and Edgar are talented fighters worthy of competing in UFC title bouts, but after two losses each against champions, they both stared into a long, dark tunnel of endless non-title fights.
What happens when a fighter is clearly the second best in the weight class, and there isn’t any option to go up or down?
This is the situation for Dos Santos. He is a cut above all the rest at heavyweight, but he can’t get past Velasquez. The heavyweight division is the heaviest weight class in the UFC, so he can’t move up. Meanwhile, he’d have to cut off a limb to drop down to light heavyweight.
In other sports, the best teams often play one another multiple times for a championship. Let’s say Dos Santos comes back and knocks off three or four top heavyweight contenders.
Should he still be denied a title shot if Velasquez is champion?
The hypotheticals become even more interesting if Velasquez were to lose the title and Dos Santos were to defeat the newly crowned champ to win back the belt. Would the UFC hesitate to have him defend the title in a fourth fight against Velasquez?
At the end of the day, winning is the only thing that matters in fighting. If Dos Santos puts together a nice streak, it will be hard for the UFC to turn a blind eye and write him off as irrelevant in the heavyweight title picture.
Velasquez vs. Dos Santos could soon be considered the Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings rivalry in the UFC.
Cain Velasquez closed the book on his rivalry with Junior dos Santos at UFC 166, wiping the floor with him during a dominant victory on Saturday.
