The trilogy
2013 was a weird year for Cain in a lot of ways, mainly due to the fact that essentially, he repeated 2012. His first defence came in May, and it turned out to be against a familiar foe. Alistair Overeem was expected to take the title shot with a win over Bigfoot Silva but ended up the victim of a famous upset and so – in a fight that was barely even interesting, given what had happened just a year prior – Bigfoot ended up with the unlikely title shot.
This time Cain finished him off even quicker, dropping him with a left-right combo as he lumbered forward. The fight had been a mismatch on paper and it was a mismatch in execution. Once that was done with, most fans expected Fabricio Werdum to be named as the next contender, but instead, the UFC booked another rematch, this time the trilogy bout with Dos Santos.
For me, the third Velasquez/Dos Santos fight – at UFC 166 in October 2013 – simply came too soon. After all, the second fight had been a one-sided beatdown and really, with just one win since Dos Santos hadn’t truly earned his shot. But then again, Cain had only won one fight before earning his own rematch and the UFC had always loved the idea of trilogies, probably due to Dana White’s boxing background. At any rate, the fight was on.
The tagline for UFC 166 was ‘History will be written by the winner’, and it would be Velasquez whose name ended up in the history books. This time he slightly tweaked his gameplan from UFC 155, pushing the same pace but rather than shooting for a lot of takedowns, he was able to force Dos Santos into the fence – negating the Brazilian’s boxing game – and roughed him up from the clinch instead. The key to this was Cain’s fantastic use of what is crudely known as “head-mashing” – basically using the forehead to grind into the opponent in order to control them on the fence. Velasquez looked like prime Randy Couture on speed.
The fight was a one-sided beatdown and the third round, in particular, was vicious – Dos Santos went down, knocked silly by a right hook, and his head was bounced off the ground by Cain’s follow-up punches. Somehow, referee, Herb Dean let the fight continue though and JDS – showing the heart of a lion – survived into the fifth before finally giving up the ghost; a failed guillotine attempt lead to Cain smashing his head down into the mat and his body simply couldn’t take any more.
It was the type of beating that could be seen as career-altering. If there were any doubt as to whom the better man was, it was totally erased that night.
