I tweeted after the main event of UFC 155 that Junior Dos Santos should get credit for lasting five rounds with a superior fighter on Saturday night. It seems like Dana White agrees with me. Yet, instead of heaping credit on JDS, the UFC boss seems to lay blame on the shoulders of the new heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez instead. After a dominating performance in round 1, White said in the post-fight press conference that maybe things shouldn’t have gone on as long as they did in octagon:
"I think that Cain Velasquez could have stopped it in the second round. He could have let his hands go in any of those flurries, anywhere from the second to the fifth, and the ref probably would have jumped in. But Cain was fighting the safe fight, he wanted that belt, and it was a great fight."
While true, this statement seems to contradict a lot of White says about wanting fighters to put on entertaining fights. The safe approach worked for Velasquez, but did it in the eyes of the fans that want knockouts, tap outs, and excitement for their $55? It didn’t for me. And regardless of what Velasquez wants, the business model of the UFC is geared heavily toward PPV buys. That equates to trouble when the final 20 minutes of the show had me yawning with the hope to get to bed before midnight.
Thankfully heavyweights aren’t usually plagued by boring fights. Someone lands a haymaker and then everyone goes home happy. Let’s hope this was a one-time thing for Cain. The man is beast and well-worth paying to see inside the cage.
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