Junior Dos Santos vs. Stipe Miocic: What's at Stake in This Heavyweight Tilt?
The UFC heavyweight division has a way of muddying its own waters.
Perhaps in a perfect world—or just a normal weight class—Saturday night’s network television main event pitting No. 2 Junior dos Santos against No. 4 Stipe Miocic would have all the trappings of a title eliminator.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Miocic is 6-1 in the UFC (he hasn’t lost since Sept. 2012), and a victory over dos Santos would summarily check the last box on his application for top-contender status. Meanwhile, Dos Santos is a former champion whose only losses in the Octagon have come to the current titlist. If anybody in the weight class deserves a third crack at the strap, it’s him.
With a win this weekend, it’d be hard to deny that ether guy deserves a direct flight into a championship fight. Unfortunately, “deserve” seldom gets the last word at 265 pounds.
So, what’s at stake for these two likable behemoths? As usual, it depends: On who wins. On which way the wind blows. On a litany of factors still very much in play and still very much beyond anyone’s control.
At present moment, champion Cain Velasquez is out on yet another injury sabbatical. It’s become such a habit for him that last month the UFC had to put an interim title on Fabricio Werdum. Matchmakers still seem intent on having Werdum and Velasquez settle things with a fight south of the border in 2015, but—surprise, surprise—that (and almost everything else) remains up in the air.
Until the UFC determines if Velasquez can make it back in a timely fashion, the rest of the division is left to fight it out among itself.
For dos Santos, the most important thing here is simply to prove the heavyweight title picture is still a three-horse race. Owing to a pesky hand injury and the UFC’s own constantly shifting sands, it’s been nearly 14 months since we’ve seen him in action. Despite the fact he won’t turn 31 until January, all that inactivity (and two previous losses to Velasquez) have taken some of the luster off him.
If he can dispose of Miocic, either by quick stoppage or drawn-out beatdown, it’ll go a long way to showing he should remain in the conversation alongside Werdum and Velasquez. It would also help the affable Brazilian work out some of the frustration of what has been a very difficult year for him.
"I'm going to tell you the truth, that I had a hard time staying positive sometimes,” dos Santos told Bleacher Report's Duane Finley. “It was a tough year for me, and there were some moments where I was very sad. But right now, I'm really happy and motivated. I had a great camp, and I'm going to go in there and get a big victory.”
It goes without saying that no man in the division would benefit more than dos Santos if Velsaquez is off the table for an extended period of time. The two have already fought three times—JDS is 1-2 against Cain—and it will take a lot of arm-twisting and a lot of winning by dos Santos to make a fourth fight viable.
On the other hand, since he already owns a UFC victory over Werdum, a rematch with the suddenly gold-plated 37-year-old would make all the sense in the world. If he beats Miocic, the best-case scenario for JDS would be to drop his nice-guy demeanor and call out the new interim champ. He should at least try to force the UFC’s hand in making him a bout against “Vai Cavalo,” without waiting for Velasquez.
For Miocic, things are even less clear cut. He’s been on a roll since losing to Stefan Struve back in the days when UFC on Fuel TV was still a thing, but his resume remains a little short on A-list opponents. His most recent victory was a 35-second drubbing of light heavyweight Fabio Maldonado, in a makeshift bout booked only after dos Santos pulled out with an injury.
We already know he’s a sizable, athletic bruiser with good all-around skills, but the dos Santos fight has the potential to really be his coming-out party. Right now, he’s hanging his hat on back-to-back wins over Roy Nelson and Gabriel Gonzaga in 2013-14, but JDS represents his best chance yet to prove he truly belongs among the 265-pound elite.
"I think my versatility is going to be a big factor in this fight," Miocic told Finley. "Of course he wants me to stand there and bang with him and just trade off, but I have a lot of other weapons. I do wrestle and I can grapple and do a lot of things he's not used to seeing."
Either way, the winner here isn’t necessarily guaranteed to take a giant leap forward. For dos Santos, a victory most likely sets him up for a meeting with Travis Browne in the spring. Browne looked like his old, dominant self in dispatching Brendan Schaub last weekend at UFC 181. If he and dos Santos are both coming off victories and both waiting for Velasquez to get healthy, putting them together seems like a no-brainer.
Likewise, a win by Miocic would give him a couple of good options moving forward. He could surely fight Browne, but it also wouldn’t feel out of place to install him in a fight against the resurgent Todd Duffee. Duffee returned to the Octagon for the first time in two years at UFC 181 and smoked Anthony Hamilton in 33 seconds. He could be a top-five heavyweight by the middle of next year, and a matchup with Miocic wouldn’t draw many complaints.
No matter what, the future of the heavyweight division will continue to be one of MMA’s most enduring puzzles. We’re not going to see a clear picture so long as it’s missing the most important piece of all: its champion.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
