UFC on FOX Results

It took Junior Dos Santos just one minute and 4 seconds to end the reign of Cain as UFC heavyweight champion in last night’s UFC on FOX. An overhand right [to the temple] caught a stiff, nervous Velazquez flush, causing him to lose his equilibrium long enough for Dos Santos to finish him with strikes.

With no legs, Velazquez did very little fighting or protecting himself off his back after being rocked. The moment his legs went, Cigano pounced and unloaded on him, forcing referee John McCarthy to stop the fight, shocking everyone watching.

“I have no words to say what I’m feeling,” he said with tears in his eyes. “It’s amazing, my life. I want to thank all of my team, all my family, I’ve got a lot of good people around me. Thank you very much.”

Moments later, an emotional Dos Santos, who walked in to the “Rocky” theme, took the belt back to Brazil in true Balboa fashion. The new UFC heavyweight champ will await the winner of the Brock Lesnar vs Alistair Overeem fight at UFC 141, December 30^th 2011.

“I don’t have any preference,” the new champ said of his next opponent. “It doesn’t matter who my next opponent will be. I am not thinking about that now. I will go back to Brazil for a big, big barbecue for my family.”

Not only did Dos Santos expose Velazquez inability to stick to the gameplan, but it also showed how difficult it really is to defend the title especially after a long layoff. But let’s give the Brazilian the credit that he deserves.

JDS went in there as a huge underdog, stood in the pocket with one of the hardest punching guys in the world, and lived to tell the story by coming out with 12 pounds of gold. And while many people will rip this event as a “failure” I can say just one thing: stop being ignorant!

I think people have gotten too used to seeing WWE or boxing, two sports in which outcomes couldn’t be more restricted, and thus, the fights less real (i.e. Manny Pacquiao vs Juan Manuel Marquez 3 last night…).

For those of you that don’t understand what happened in UFC on FOX last night, let me break it down for you, so you can understand it. There’s this thing called “ring rust” — you may have heard about it — which affects fighters after long layoffs, especially those caused by lingering injuries and/or surgeries.

In spite of what anyone says, ring rust is real, and almost impossible to shake off in practice. Last night, the combination of ring rust, and nervousness clearly affected Velazquez’s timing. Not only were his punches nothing like we’re used to seeing, but his feet and head movement were also way off. The moment the bell rang and he walked towards the center of the Octagon, I knew he didn’t look right.

Velazquez was as stiff as a board, and JDS was nice and loose. That’s a very bad combination when two deadly strikers are facing one another. The biggest question everyone has after this fight is, and will be for a long time: why didn’t Velazquez take Dos Santos down?

For some odds reason, the former two-time NCAA Division I All-American didn’t expose the area in which he’s best and Dos Santos weakest enough in the early going. I understand that you can’t just go in there and shoot right in, but standing in front of him was obviously a terrible decision.

If I’m Velazquez, I don’t care if people start booing because I push this guy to the cage and Greco-clinch him until getting the takedown. Perhaps he didn’t want the fight to be considered boring? Perhaps, I don’t know.

“It was my fault,” Velasquez said after the fight. “I didn’t pressure enough. The game plan was to go in there and pressure. I waited back too long. I was playing dos Santos’ game.”