Dos Santos vs. Hunt: Round-by-Round Predictions for UFC 160's Co-Main Event

While Mark Hunt and Junior dos Santos won’t be the last two to take the ring at UFC 160 on Saturday night in Las Vegas, it’s sure to be an interesting fight.

Hunt enters the bout against the former heavyweight champion as the clear underdog. If the fight goes past the first or second round, cardio could start to become an issue for The Super Samoan. Hunt has lost six matches via submission, but dos Santos isn’t likely to win that way, if at all.

Dos Santos comes into this fight starving for another opportunity to regain the heavyweight belt, which he lost to Cain Velasquez. He’s plays extraordinary defense and is very quick, two parts of his game that should give him a considerable edge. His punches are as hard as they come, so look for a knockout from him.

The last fighter standing could get a title shot to face Velasquez—or potentially Antonio Silva should he win in the main event.

So which fighter will add a victory to his resume? Let’s take a round-by-round look at how things might go come Saturday night.

Round 1

Hunt will certainly come into the fight looking to knock out dos Santos as early as possible. As previously mentioned, a longer match will clearly favor the former champion, dos Santos.

Whether Hunt will be able to connect with those punches is up for debate. He defends 58 percent of significant strikes, according to Fight Metric. An early takedown is out of the question against dos Santos as well, as he defends 74 percent of those.

But the problem for him is that Hunt also plays great defense. He is actually better against significant strikes, but a little worse against takedowns. Dos Santos is much quicker, though, which means that while he might be defended more, he could potentially throw more punches.

Dos Santos has five TKO victories while Hunt has just two. He could try to pull a fast one and try to get Hunt to submit early—taking into consideration that it’s a big weakness for him—but that’s somewhat unlikely as well since he’s only won once that way.

Predicted Results: 10-8, dos Santos

Round 2

The second round is going to show how much better dos Santos is compared to Hunt. Dos Santos will have won the first round, meaning that Hunt will need a big second to work his way back into the match.

The last thing Hunt wants to happen is to have the fight fall into the hands of the judges, to which he’ll likely lose. Hunt has to do his best to land a couple of significant strikes to dos Santos in order to weaken him and make him more vulnerable.

But don’t expect him to just sit there and take punch after punch. He’s going to be moving around as much as possible to try to slow Hunt down. This is where cardio is going to start playing a big role in the fight.

Dos Santos will look for the perfect opportunity to land a flurry of punches to the upper body and head of Hunt. One strong blow from him toward the end of the second round will knock Hunt to the ground, out cold.

Dos Santos comes away victorious and earns himself a shot to regain the heavyweight title.

Predicted Results: dos Santos wins via TKO