Junior Dos Santos knocks out Frank Mir to defend UFC heavyweight title for 1st time – UFC News
Junior Dos Santos, the current UFC heavyweight champion, successfully defended his title in an impressive way and avenged his mentor’s loss by knocking out Frank Mir, the former UFC heavyweight champion, in the second round of the five-round showdown held
on May 26, 2012.
The duo headlined the fight card which was dubbed as ‘UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Frank Mir’ and the octagon for the event was set up at MGM Grand Garden Arena situated in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.
The first ever complete heavyweight fight card was co-headlined by the three-round take on between Cain Velasquez and Antonio Silva. The highly anticipated bout between Santos and Mir put forth the UFC fanatics an epic show to remember.
Both men strived hard to nail the other one but it was Dos Santos who used his agility and connected swift almost invisible jabs to Mir’s face and body. Santos, 27, was entering in his 16th career bout and boasted 14 wins with 10 via knockout.
Widely known as the best knockout specialist, Santos, also known as the ‘Cigano’, was colliding with an opponent who had epic mastery in a completely different brawling style that is submission ground game
Frank, 33, is renowned as the best submission tactician present in the whole of UFC at the moment, the man who broke Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s, Santos trainer, arm in his last bout.
Mir was entering in his 22nd bout and boasted nine of his 16 wins by making the opponent submit. From the very first round, amidst the roars and chants of the spectators, Santos set the pace and threw a left-right combination.
After a minute or two, Mir grabbed Santos’ right leg and tried to pull him down to grab him in one of his lethal manoeuvres. Frank tried real hard but Junior evaded the attack and stood on the other side of the octagon giving Mir time to stand up.
The bout continued and it seemed like the submission attempt by Frank energised Santos as he leashed a huge new wave of jabs that consistently connected Frank’s body and face.
During the second round, Frank’s movements revealed that he has seriously been stunned by the last-second jab thrown by Santos. This aspect created great problems for Frank as he was dizzy from the start and Santos capitalised the advantage by leashing a
second last barrage of powerful jabs.
Frank admitted after the bout that he was unable to halt the champion’s speed and commented, “He’s the champ. He’s fast, and I couldn’t get out of the way. He just hit me too many times.”
Santos after defending his title successfully for the first time, stated, “My gameplan was to keep the distance in the first round, to make him a little bit tired in the first round. And in the second round, come to knock him out. And that works!”
The Brazilian proud who has collected his 10th straight win, further added that Mir has the ability to sustain powerful jabs, “Yeah, that surprised me. He can take a punch man. My hand is, I'm feeling pain in my hands. He survived a little bit. But not too
much!”
After this impressive win Santos is now somewhat eyeballing Cain Velasquez who in the co-headliner nailed the massive Antonio Silva easily and if this engagement gets finalised, the UFC fanatics will definitely witness a thrilling sequel to November 2011
clash.
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