Can Junior dos Santos Give the UFC Heavyweight Division Stability?

but after those two, he will fight Cain Velasquez again and Cain will take the belt from JDS

I think he will have a good chance against any opponent but Reem, Brock, Barnett and Cain can have his # on any night it’s just where the fight takes place… and who knows what his knee is going to be like after surgery… do you wanna try and defend a Brock, cain or Barnett shoot on a surgically repaired knee?… do you wanna recieve leg kicks from a K1 striker on a surgically repaired knee? As always thing will probably remain interesting and ever changing in the shallow upper crust of the HW division.

I know JDS is a super great ultra boxer 3000 but last I checked Overeem was a K1 champion with awesome TDD and an evil guillotine.

My honest opinion? No, he can’t. As Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg like to point out, dos Santos is a specialist.

Personally I think Rogan, and many others underestimate Dos Santos because they simply want to put the boxing label on him. Rampage always was well rounded but just because he used his boxing skills, people decided that he wasn’t well rounded. That’s kind of lazy.

Dos Santos may be a specialist but it should be more than obvious that he has been steadily working on his overall game. I wonder how often Rogan and many others will continue to spew the fact that you have to well-rounded, wrestling base is so important, blah, blha, baaa. I’m biased toward strikers. Fights begin standing up.

With that said, Dos Santos will probably not defend his title 3 or more times.

He’s only 27 years old. Brock is 34 and Overeem is 31 and has a long career and a history of being knocked out. Even Cain has a few years on him. And as JDS grows, he will continue to develop as a fighter and get better. Just think about how great his striking will be in 2 or 3 years. That’s kind of terrifying.

Junior has shown that he has the ability to end fights with a single punch, while also absorbing massive damage. The two fighters has hasn’t knocked out have been severely outclassed. I don’t really think that there is anybody that is going to be able to get around Junior’s iron fists. It doesn’t matter what happens in the fight, he is going to clip you, and if he does, you better hope you’re Roy Nelson, because if you aren’t, you’re going to be face down on the canvas.

I don’t think he is unbeatable, I just think that in every one of the possible match ups, he has the advantage. I see the likely ending to be a KO, TKO or a savage beating.

Junior has dropped everyone he fought in the UFC except Cro Cop, JDS Gave Mirko and uppercut to the eye that made him quit.

If JDS is a “specialist,” than so are Anderson Silva, Brock Lesnar, Jon Fitch, Jose Aldo, Shogun, Machida, and a crap-ton of other contending and championship fighters. Making him out to be some sort of crazy throwback who doesn’t have any other tools outside of his boxing is wrong and easily disprovable.

Gonzaga (BJJ Black Belt), Carwin (NCAA wrestler), Roy Nelson (BJJ Black Belt) and Cain Velasquez (NCAA Champion) have all tried and failed to put Junior on his back and keep him there long enough to do something meaningful.

At some point maybe we admit that it’s not a fluke and that JDS has very good defensive wrestling, excellent hips, and BJJ that is extremely well adapted to scrambling and putting the fight back where he wants it.

I don’t know how long he holds the belt, but I am starting to feel like he’s in for the Frankie Edgar treatment as champ, with people consistently picking against him because they have a frankly wrongheaded understanding of his game.

I mean, it might be true, I’m just curious the reason. I’ve always understood that the conventional wisdom is the heavier fighters have greater longevity because they don’t have as high a reliance on reflexes as do lighter weight fighters.

I’m one of the marks who chose 3 or more. I know it’s far from a sure thing but here’s why. AO is an experienced striker but he’s very plodding. I think he’ll follow Junior around the cage in a way similair to what Cain did. That strategy worked for him in K-1 when he has the big gloves to block with then he can launch his counter offense. Junior is excellent at keeping the range he wants so I think he will land on AO form the outside until wants to dig into some combos. Once he staggers AO then the end could come at any time. Junior has shown to have the better chin so I think he should be favored around -200 in that fight.
If he fights Brock then he will rely more on his superior agility and speed to avoid Brock’s bull rush. It should be obvious to everyone that Junior is extremely hard to take down. I think his stats show he’s been taken down twice (maybe 3 times now) but each time was for less than one second . The odds are stacked too much against Brock. In all likelihood he would have to have multiple succcessfull takedowns to win and I’m not going to make that leap especially when you consider Randy’s success at defendiing Brocks TD’s. In the Cain rematch I think the styles favor Junior in a big way. Someone might get a takedown on Junior against the fence but I’m willing to bet he can wall walk with the best of them.
If he stays healthy ( it looks like this recent injury is pretty minor/recoverable) then I’ll give him a better than 50-50% of 3 more consecutive wins.

I think JDS beats Overeem more often than not. Brock has a shout chance if he can take him down and keep them there but there is always the chance that JDS will catch him. Cain, fully fit and not injured, would probably beat him imo. Cormier and Josh Barnett both have good styles to beat him too but only if they get himdown and keep him there

To me I think Overeem is definitely the biggest challenge for JDS right now, as he is arguably the only one in the HW division who can seriously challenge his stand-up game. If Reem beats Brock, and JDS then beats Reem, I could definitely see JDS holding the title for a couple more defenses. After that Reem/Brock winner things get a bit easier in the current UFC HW division. Who will be next, Frank Mir? Don’t give him too much of a chance. Cain rematch? See it going about the same. Brock down the line? No, I don’t think he’ll ever again beat a great striker with good takedown defense. Possibly you can also look at some of the Strikeforce fighters, but I don’t see anyone there who would be a huge threat to JDS. So yeah, I think JDS has a good chance to hold on to it for a little while. But at the same time it is the HW division, and anyone can get caught, even JDS. Lots of great match-ups ahead, that’s for sure.

but I can’t really see Alistair beating JDS. If JDS can get past Alistair (if he beats Lesnar) then I don’t see any route to victory for a challanger against JDS outside of a grappling-heavy gameplan.