UFC 166: 3 Reasons Why Velasquez vs Dos Santos 3 Is Unmissable
3. The First Fight
November 12th 2011 was a massive day not just in UFC history but in MMA history too as for the first time ever a UFC fight would be shown on a major cable TV network. Much like the first season of the Ultimate Fighter the UFC put a lot of time and investment into their first ever fight on Fox wanting it to be a success for their brand and the sport.
Cain and Dos Santos were the ones pushed out into the bright cable spotlight with every MMA fan hoping for a Griffin vs. Bonnar type of war from the two heavyweight contenders. Sadly that kind of high energy back and forth battle didnt appear, it was an amazing night but the problem was the fight barely lasted a minute. Dos Santos caught Cain in the opening minute with a beautiful overhand right flooring the champion allowing him to be finished with some hard punches on the ground.
Junior became the champion and even though it was later revealed that both men were suffering from injuries when they stepped into the Octagon that night nothing should take away Dos Santoss brilliant victory. Cain Velasquez must have really suffered from that defeat; a knockout loss just after being so utterly dominating in winning the belt to lose in his very first title defence must have been hard to take as losing any belt without defending it is.
It will be no problem Velasquez will have this Saturday as he already has a successful title defence under his belt going into the trilogy. He tried not to use his rotator cuff surgery as a reason for his defeat true he felt it unbalanced his performance and made him more defensive but he knew he got beat and all that did was fire him up to come back better to get his belt back.
For Dos Santos the fight could not have gone much better or been bigger for his career, winning the world title with a one punch KO is a huge statement that elevated him into the elite of MMA. He followed up the ultra-impressive win with a victory over the veteran Frank Mir showing his boxing is the best in the UFC right now in any weight class.
The fight may not have been a classic but it teaches us one big lesson going into the third fight and that is Dos Santos has one punch knockout power if he lands a big shot on Cain it will knock him down and for any fighter there can be no more confidence in going into a fight knowing that with one punch cleanly struck you can win the fight.