10. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos (UFC On FOX 1)
For the UFC's debut on their new prime time network partner, the promotion wanted to make a big splash. Traditionally heavyweights have always been the fighters that held the fans' interest the most, because nothing is more exciting than seeing two big guys slugging it out. With the lighter weight classes, you get a lot of frenetic movement and rapid fire exchanges, but with the heavyweights one shot can and often does end it all. So to stack the deck in favor of making the biggest impact for the first show, UFC pitted HW champ Cain Velasquez against striking specialist Junior Dos Santos. At the time Santos was on a tear, coming in with a record of 15-1 after demolishing some of the toughest guys in the division. Since winning the title from Brock Lesnar, Velasquez had been sitting out for a year due to shoulder surgery. Fans were stoked to see the two biggest dogs in the yard scrap over the belt. This was a fight that seemed to have no easily predictable winner. Both guys had obvious strengths and very few visible weaknesses, and we were prepared to see a war. Due to the network access and guaranteed slugfest status, this was a fight that fans were using to try and lurein their friends who had not yet discovered the awesomeness of UFC. Well, that backfired. At 1 minute and 4 seconds of the first round, Cain Velasquez suffered his first loss when JDS clipped him with a big shot to the ear. The champion crumbled and the challenger pounced, earning a referee stoppage and the belt. After what seemed like hours of pre-match build-up and analysis, the fight was over before it started. New viewers were left wondering "That's it?" and we hardcore fans felt the need to justify UFC's "anything can happen" action. Interestingly enough, had UFC not made the decision to air only one fight and shown the Benson Henderson/Clay Guida matchup as well, viewers would have been treated to an amazing action-packed encounter that likely would have given them the results they hoped for. Instead, this main event was a huge disappointment.