...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
"My first strategy is always to knock my opponents out and I will try to do that again. I know Cain Velasquez, I respect him a lot. He's really tough. But I will give my best to win this fight, it doesn't matter where. Of course I want to knock him out but if the fight goes to the ground, I will be ready to submit him too.
I train a lot of jiu-jitsu, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I'm working on my takedown defense. I know he's a really good wrestler and he's going to try to take me down and use his ground-n-pound where he's very good but if the fight goes to the ground, I'm ready. Like I said, I'm ready to submit someone to really show how good I am in my jiu-jitsu."
-UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior dos Santos talks to MMA Live about wanting to prove his capabilities in the ground game in the future (transcribed by Fighters.com).
Penick's Analysis: Dos Santos hasn't had any reason to go to the ground with his opponents in the UFC. He prefers to use his boxing game, and he's very capable of keeping himself standing in a fight. That's evident in the results he's had in the UFC. Though he's already earned a knockout win against Velasquez, the results of that fight will have Velasquez trying a different strategy this time around, and he may very well be able to put dos Santos on his back in this one. If that happens, dos Santos will have his opportunity to showcase those ground skills. This fight really could be an entirely different style of fight from what we saw last November, and considering the different ways the fight could go makes things very intriguing despite the 64 second finish in their first fight.
[Junior dos Santos art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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