Styles clash in UFC 146 main event
Junior dos Santos needed just 64 seconds to show a national TV audience just how hard he can punch. When he took Cain Velasquez's heavyweight title in the first UFC on FOX broadcast in November, Dos Santos used a barrage of power punches to overwhelm his opponent.
Frank Mir holds the record for most submission wins by a UFC heavyweight with eight, including a devastating victory over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, when he broke the Brazilian's arm in his last fight at UFC 140 in December.
When the two meet Saturday in the main event at UFC 146 in Las Vegas with Dos Santos' heavyweight title on the line, fans will be treated to a classic mixed martial arts style matchup pitting a striker against a grappler.
Having spent more than 10 years in the UFC, Mir has faced his fair share of strikers while compiling a 16-5 record. So the prospect of facing someone with the boxing prowess of Dos Santos doesn't worry Mir.
"I think I’ve done well (against strikers)," Mir told FOXSports.com. "If you look at the last three or four years, my only losses have come against guys with wrestling backgrounds. They were able to nullify my standup by closing the distance, and then keeping the fight against the cage or on the ground.
"That’s where I was, actually, unsuccessful. So far, against the guys that like to keep distance and move around, like Mirko Cro-Cop and Cheick Kongo, I’ve done very well."
Similarly, Dos Santos (14-1) isn't apprehensive about facing an opponent with Mir's abilities on the mat.
"His ground game isn’t something that really concerns me," Dos Santos said through his translator and manager, Ana Claudia Guedes. "Yeah, I agree that he’s a great submission artist. He’s among the best in the heavyweight division and he can do a lot of damage on the ground.
"But when we make our strategies going into the fights, I look at what I can do. Taking him down on the ground for sure isn’t part of my strategy going into this fight. My strategy, as always, is to use my boxing. I believe very much I’m very confident on my feet. So I’m going to be looking for the knockout, but I’m prepared to fight wherever the fight goes."
Mir originally was going to fight Velasquez at UFC 146. But when Dos Santos' original opponent, Alistair Overeem, tested positive for elevated testosterone levels, the UFC made the move to pit Mir against the champion while Velasquez will take on Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva in the co-main event.
Having begun his training well before the opponent switch, Mir said he had been training for a foe in Velasquez who not only throws powerful strikes, but is also a two-time All-American wrestler. When he found out he was going to face Dos Santos, Mir not only had to work on a new game plan, but also had to bring in some new sparring partners.
"First of all, for Cain, we trained to face good boxing with takedowns. He can throw a punch and change levels and go and take you down with a work rate," Mir said.
"With Dos Santos, I started sparring with some lighter guys with more speed, but still tall. At the same time, not taking shots (at takedowns). Maybe once in a while they do, just to keep you honest, because Dos Santos does sometimes, also. But that’s not the primary goal, to try to get me to the ground. Cain Velasquez wouldn’t have wanted me to put him on his back. Dos Santos, I don’t think wants me to, either."
It's that speed that most concerns Mir, not so much the boxing. Dos Santos is 6-foot-4 and weighs 240 pounds, but he moves around like a much smaller man when he gets in the Octagon.
"I think if he was just as quick as some of the other heavyweights, he might not be as successful," Mir said of Dos Santos. "He gets away with a lot because of his speed. There are fighters who have attributes that let them get away with stuff. Dos Santos has blinding speed. When you weigh 240 pounds and you connect, that’s a deadly combination."
It's not often opponents find common ground in pre-fight talk, but Dos Santos agrees with Mir's assesment of his primary edge.
"I do believe I’m faster and I believe it’s a big advantage," Dos Santos said.
"It’s always been a strong suit of mine in all of my fights and it’s an advantage both for me getting the aggressive strikes that I want to get in, as well as avoiding other people’s punches and counterstrikes. So, I do think a big advantage going into this fight I have is my speed."
Mir believes he's got his own advantages that will help him win the UFC heavyweight title for the third time: his versatility. He said he's won fights both on his feet and on the ground, unlike the one-dimensional Dos Santos. And he points to a common opponent he and Dos Santos share to prove his theory, heavyweight contender Roy Nelson (who will face Dave Herman in Saturday's all-heavyweight main card at UFC 146).
"One example I bring up is the Roy fight," Mir said. "He had a very devastating first round. Roy landed some good shots and stunned him. In our first round with Roy, I landed 10 knees to the face and hit him with some good shots and had him stunned. But I couldn’t put him away, and neither could Junior. And Junior even dropped him down to the ground for a second with one of his uppercuts.
"But in the second round of their fight, he continued just to box and stick and move. And in the third round, even though it was a foregone conclusion that he wasn’t going to knock him out, he stuck to the boxing aspect. Whereas in our fight, after the first round was over, I realized, ‘Man, I just hit this guy with everything but the kitchen sink, he’s not going anywhere, let me switch directions and two and take him down and wrestle him around a little bit, maybe wear him out and ground on him."
Dos Santos has only won two fights via submission (one with a guillotine choke way back in his pre-UFC days in 2006 and one in 2009 when Mirko Cro-Cop suffered an eye injury and was forced to quit). That being the case, Dos Santos' ability on the ground remains a mystery to nearly everyone, including his opponent Saturday.
"I’ve got to assume he’s capable," Mir said of Dos Santos' ground game. "I don’t think he’s going to look like a turtle, on the ground just flailing around. I’m assuming his strengths are toward escaping and getting the fight back up on its feet and nullifying jiu-jitsu. I don’t think you’re going to see him going to try to throw me into a triangle or go for a choke-and-armbar combination putting in work on the ground. I think that’s the last thing he wants to do."
So Mir feels pretty confident we'll see the same Dos Santos we've seen to this point, one who throws big punches and moves around the Octagon very well. Don't expect to see the champion reinvent himself with so much on the line.
"He’s never won any of his (UFC) fights (on the ground) yet," Mir said. "I don’t know why he would want to take his chance there in his first title defense. You know, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. I’m sure he’s going to come out and stick to what he does best."
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