Cain is willing to face able opponents
SAN JOSE, Calif. – The Cain Velasquez people are used to seeing is an almost expressionless, tireless competitor.
Whether it is his endless energy when fighting in the cage or his stoic facial expressions in training clips from the gym, the UFC heavyweight champion can come across as almost more machine than man.
He’s never lost a round, let alone a fight, in mixed martial arts competition. He made it to the UFC after just two fights. He became a world champion and won numerous fighter of the year awards last year – scoring first-round knockouts of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Brock Lesnar – in just his fourth full year in the sport.
There is often a fear that winning a first world championship will change a fighter, and not for the better. But there was little fear among those who knew Velasquez that he’d fall into that trap. He grew up with a work ethic developed from a father who was a migrant worker, learned the lifestyle and channeled it into sports.
For Velasquez, training daily is almost like brushing his teeth. After a fight, he'll take maybe a week vacation before he has to get back in the gym.
"Nothing’s really changed that much," said Velasquez about life as the highest profile heavyweight champion in North America in any combat sport. "I get recognized more in public, and I have more appearances and more media interviews. Except for that, everything is the same."
And there's one other big difference, at least temporarily. Due to surgery for a torn rotator cuff and labrum in his right shoulder, suffered in his title win over Lesnar, Velasquez hasn’t been able to train for months. He still doesn’t know exactly when during the fight the injury happened, only knowing that when he woke up the morning after the fight, the shoulder was hurting. Ultimately, the injury required surgery.
"I got cleared two weeks ago," said Velasquez. "I can kick all out. I can’t punch or do any wrestling. What a lot of people don’t realize is that when you stop training kicks, your shins get soft, and right now it’s going to take time to toughen them up."
This is the first real lengthy layoff Velasquez has had in his combat sports career. When he broke his hand, as he’s done twice, he could still work lower body. When he had knee surgery, he could still work upper body. With this injury, the champ wasn’t allowed to do anything because even a light jog could jar the healing shoulder.
Trainer Javier Mendez said if it was up to him, he’d target December for Velasquez's return in order to guarantee him at 100 percent, but he knows UFC is looking at Oct. 8 in Houston. His first title defense will be against the winner of the June 11 fight between Shane Carwin and Junior Dos Santos. Velasquez sees that date as a reasonable goal.
At UFC’s current level of popularity, any heavyweight title fight is going to be big. But a rematch with Velasquez against Lesnar, who pulled out of his title elimination fight with Dos Santos due to diverticulitis, had potential to be one of the three biggest events in company history.
There were rumors that had Lesnar beaten Dos Santos, they were considering having the match at Reliant Stadium in Houston, as opposed to the Toyota Center.
If Velasquez has any preference on who he wants, or would have wanted to fight, he doesn’t let on.
"They are two good fighters," said Velasquez, noting he was headed to Vancouver to watch the fight. "I just want to fight whoever is the best guy, whoever is the best guy on that night. And I hope Brock gets healthy as soon as possible."
Mendez was thrilled when Lesnar vs. Dos Santos was announced. The business sense in him knew that when you’re attached to Lesnar in a big promotion, you become a bigger star simply through association.
Velasquez went from being an undefeated fighter but really not a major star in the sport, to someone marketed as the company’s Great Latino Hope over a few-week period in October. Between the promotion for his shot at Lesnar and winning the title, he opened up what had been a tough-to-reach Hispanic demographic for the company. It worked well enough that sportswriters at ringside who regularly cover sports in Southern California said the deafening crowd noise at the Honda Center in Anaheim when Velasquez won was as big as anything heard on the local sports scene in recent years.
"I thought Lesnar was going to beat Junior Dos Santos," said Mendez. "I know most people were favoring Dos Santos, and are favoring him against Carwin.
"I don’t think people give Lesnar nearly enough credit," said Mendez. "He was going to take Dos Santos down. When we fought him, we knew he was going to take us down [Lesnar took Velasquez down twice early, but Velasquez popped up unharmed both times and came back to win late in the first round]. There is nobody in the sport that Lesnar isn’t going to take down. People say that you can train to stop his take down. Uh-uh. The only person that maybe, Lesnar wouldn’t be able to take down would be Daniel Cormier [a two-time Olympic wrestler]."
"I think [Lesnar’s camp] underestimated just how good Cain was," Mendez said. "They had a good game plan, but we had a better game plan." Still, Mendez sees the new UFC 131 main event as an interesting match-up.
"I think that the better boxer is Junior," he said. "The footwork goes to Junior. The better power puncher is Shane. Both have great boxing coaches. Shane’s wrestling for MMA is very good. But Junior is very hard to take down. I don’t know if Shane can take him down, while if he fought Brock, I know Brock was going to take him down. If it goes to a decision, I favor Junior. A knockout could go either way. Shane has the power where he can put it on you."
Dos Santos hasn’t shown major weaknesses thus far in his career, while Carwin had a major hole exposed in his loss to Lesnar. Carwin had destroyed everyone he had faced in his career in less than four minutes. He was doing the same to Lesnar as well. But he didn’t finish Lesnar. And at the four-minute mark, his body was done, and Lesnar roared back to finish him in the second round.
"You have to think they will take care of that problem," Mendez said.
