Junior Dos Santos and the heavyweight division

Cain Velasquez captured the UFC heavyweight belt in October of 2010. He was subsequently injured and couldn't defend his title until November of 2011 against Junior Dos Santos (JDS). JDS stuffed takedowns, blocked kicks and landed a bomb that put Cain out in 64 seconds. What was odd was the hype preceding this bout. The UFC sold Cain as a fighter with "zero weaknesses" and as a dominant fighter. It was an odd way to hype the fight as Cain is a great but flawed fighter. This isn't revisionist history either...I picked Cain to beat Brock and I picked JDS to beat Cain before both bouts happened. Cain is a very predictable fighter and has proven to be vulnerable in certain areas. JDS, on the other hand, has not looked vulnerable in any of his UFC bouts to date.

Cain is a great fighter with an unlimited gas tank. He has good power and a great wrestling base. The flaw I noticed immediately is that he has poor striking defense. He gets hit A LOT. In his fight against Cheick Kongo in June of 2009, he was rocked badly three times. His wrestling base helped him survive and outlast Kongo in that bout. Even against Noguiera and Lesnar, both victories for Cain, he got hit often and hard. Against a striker land finisher ike JDS, you can't make mistakes like this. This is why I also think JDS will steamroll Alistair Overeem when they fight in May. Against Werdum in June of 2011, Werdum was consistently able to land a lot on Overeem and lost a close decision. Werdum does not hit anywhere near as hard as JDS does. And all JDS needs is one opening to land a knock out blow.

The winner of Cain and Frank Mir (per Dana White) gets the next title shot against the JDS/Overeem winner. Assuming JDS and Cain win, why would anyone assume a fight between them would go any differently? Cain doesn't have the striking to stay on the feet and JDS proved in the first fight that he could stuff Cain's takedowns. Mir's ground game against JDS would be very interesting but JDS trains under Noguiera so he should be able to hold his own on the ground and stay out of trouble. Mir has never shown a great takedown game so I'm not sure he even could get it to the ground in the first place. If it stays a striking battle, I see JDS finishing Mir as well.

I think JDS will hold the belt for a long time. He's beaten grapplers (Werdum, Struve, Gonzaga), wrestler/striker hybrids (Roy Nelson, Shane Carwin and Cain) and pure strikers (Gilbert Yvel and Mirko Cro Cop). If he takes out Overeem, that would be a win over a recent K-1 champion. With all of the hype surrounding Jose Aldo, Jon Jones and Anderson Silva (rightfully so), JDS should be getting more hype as well. He's on his way to clearing out his division in the most stacked version of the heavyweight division in history. I might be getting too ahead of myself but I see JDS taking out Overeem and then taking out the Mir/Cain winner. Obviously, anything can happen in MMA but JDS has been that dominant and shown such a diverse all around game. I find his style fascinating because it's very predictable but it's so effective. He stuffs takedowns, throws minimal kicks and looks to land bombs with his fists. He's like a Chuck Liddell 2.0. Great athlete, great chin and a finisher.