AMADI: Why UFC's Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez title rematch could be a repeat

By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

Barring injury or some other unforeseen circumstance, it appears as though UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior dos Santos will rematch Cain Velasquez sometime in the near future. While I won't go as far as to say that Velasquez "deserves" another fight with "Cigano" this soon, it certainly makes sense at this point in time. With Alistair Overeem unlicensed until December (at the earliest) and Daniel Cormier owing Strikeforce one last fight, a JDS-Velasquez matchup is really the only play the UFC can make right now.

Frankly, given the ease in which he dispatched Antonio Silva last Saturday night at UFC 146, matching Cain Velasquez up with anyone else would probably end up feeling like a perfunctory exercise anyway.

While I have no real objection to the rematch itself, I do however take umbrage with the idea going around that their first encounter should somehow be stricken from the record.

Admittedly, quick knockouts in and of themselves often end up proving very little in mixed martial arts. Although I don't acknowledge the existence of "lucky punches," I do recognize that improbable outcomes are bound to occur in a sport as volatile as MMA.

However, the problem with applying that line of thinking to the 64 second knockout Junior dos Santos scored against Cain Velasquez last November is that dos Santos making short work of his opponents is anything but an improbable outcome.

In sixteen professional fights, Junior dos Santos has been victorious fifteen times. Out of those fifteen victories, he's rendered his opponent unable to continue through strikes twelve times. To date, only four men have been able to last more than a single round with the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champion. In fact, dos Santos' knockout of Frank Mir last Saturday night was his ninth straight victory in the Octagon; that puts him even with UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre for the second longest winning streak in UFC history (both men of course trailing UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson Silva).

Sure, the image of an unperturbed Cain Velasquez soaked in giant blood is probably burned into the minds of UFC fans across the globe after UFC 146. But the fact is nothing happened in that fight to suggest Velasquez is any better suited to handle JDS now than he was late last year.

The Antonio Silva fight pretty much consisted of Velasquez catching a kick, taking Silva down and ground and pounding "Big Foot" until blood leaked into his eyes, ears, nose and throat. It was impressive and that kind of bloodbath is only going to help the UFC sell pay-per-views, but we really learned nothing new.

By no means am I suggesting that a JDS-Velasquez rematch is guaranteed to play out the same way; if I were truly prescient, I would have bet every dollar I've ever made on Jamie Varner this past weekend and cleaned up.

Rather, I'm merely pointing out the fact that Junior dos Santos knocks people out, and usually very quickly. To act as though a rematch now guarantees us the five round war that we thought we were getting last November would be just as obtuse as acting as though we're guaranteed another quick knockout. Big guys, small gloves; you know the rest.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @JasonAmadi and direct your "Ask the Torch" questions to mmatorch@gmail.com

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