This Saturday at UFC 166, the 3rd fight in one of the best trilogies in UFC history will take place. UFC Heavyweight Cain Velasquez won the title back from former champ Junior Dos Santos after a five round drubbing at UFC 155. Prior to that, Dos Santos claimed the title from Cain in their first meeting at UFC on Fox 1 by way of first round knock out.
In an interview with Yahoo! Sports, Cain said he saw opportunities to finish the fight with a submission, but chose not to:
“My style of fighting, I’d rather end fights with ground and pound and stuff like that,” Velasquez told Yahoo Sports. “I felt he took something away from me that was mine, and I figured I had to make him pay for that. That’s why I didn’t go for the submission.”
Dos Santos also spoke with Yahoo! and says that he’s not buying it:
I didn’t lose because he’s a better fighter than me, it’s that I didn’t react like I am used to doing,” dos Santos said. “That was the worst part about it for me. As I watched the fight again, I was saying, ‘That’s not me in there.’ I didn’t react to situations that came up.
“That is very tough, and it’s very frustrating for me. I knew what I should do, and I didn’t do it when I wanted to.
“I laughed a lot when I heard he said that,” dos Santos said. “I’ve always respected him. But I gave him a lot of good positions where he could finish me, and he wasn’t seeing them. One time, he caught my arm and he didn’t know how to finish me with the arm bar. And this is the truth: He didn’t finish me because he wasn’t able to do that.
“He can say [whatever] he wants, but I know this: He gave everything he had to win that fight, and you could see at the end of the fight that he was really tired, and he tried to finish that fight very much, and he couldn’t.”
Only Saturday night’s main event will tell who comes out on top this time. Their rubber match will cap off UFC 166 at the Toyota Center in Houston, TX. However, regardless of the outcome, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cain and JDS meet in the Octagon again after this. Each man has proven to be the very elite of the Heavyweight division and could likely face the other for the title for a fourth time.
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