Junior dos Santos jokingly
escalates growing rivalry with Cain Velasquez, saying UFC champ ‘hits like a
girl’
Junior dos Santos will meet
Cain Velasquez in the main event of UFC 166 on Oct. 19 in Houston, the third time
in less than two years that the men have met with the heavyweight title at
stake.
Dos Santos took the belt from
Velasquez at UFC on Fox 1 on Nov. 12, 2011, with a 64-second TKO. Velasquez
regained the belt and evened the series when he routed dos Santos and scored a
wide five-round decision on Dec. 29, 2012, at UFC 155 in Las Vegas.
UFC officials would love for
the rivalry to become heated, as it would stoke pay-per-view sales. As it is,
both men are affable, low-key sorts who usually have little bad to say about
the other.
Dos Santos, though, may have
taken the first step toward creating a true rivalry when he said during a
lengthy interview done in Portuguese and linked here that Velasquez “hits like
a girl.”
He was trying to explain his
surprisingly poor performance against Velasquez at UFC 155 when he made the
remark, which seems like an attempt at humor.
The term catch is a Brazilian
slang term for heavy punching power.
Now, dos Santos already
admitted he was overtrained for the fight. And in an extensive interview with
Yahoo! Sports, he repeatedly praised Velasquez.
But though he made a joke
about it’s power, it’s likely that he does believe that Velasquez is not the
biggest puncher around. He called Velasquez “my biggest adversary” but had some
interesting things to say about light heavyweight champion Jon Jones.
A dos Santos-Jones fight would
be a massive event for the UFC, as would a Velasquez-Jones fight. The winner of
the rubber match at UFC 166 might be the guy who ultimately gets to Jones
first.
Hat tip to Fernando Arbex of
Yahoo! Brazil for the Portuguese-to-English translation of dos Santos’ remarks.
(Source)
