Cain Velasquez: Why He's Still a Star on the Rise in the UFC

The UFC on Fox main event may not have lived up to the ridiculous expectations that some fans had for its huge main event, but this writer had a great time watching the two best heavyweights in the world face-off, even if it only lasted a little over a minute.

It disturbed me to think that a lot of people had Cain Velasquez as a heavy favorite. Not most people, just a decent sized portion of fans. I, along with others, couldn't pick a definitive winner and couldn't even think about possible methods that this fight could end in.

Junior dos Santos, as we know, came out the victor though with a quick first round knockout that had eluded him for several fights. He closed in and caught Cain on the equilibrium, dropping the champ. Some brutal ground and pound shut the lights off and put Cain back in the hunt for the title.

For those of you who thought that Cain was a shoe-in, let's take a look at his record. After finishing his first two fights, Cain joined the UFC. He went on to win the first three fights in the UFC, all by TKO.

His first real test was Cheick Kongo who famously dropped Cain and showed a kink in the armor of this human 'terminator'. Cain used his superior wrestling, however, to batter Kongo on the ground for the remainder of the fight to pull out a victory from an overall exciting fight.

Next came Ben Rothwell. Rothwell as many recall was just seen staggering around the octagon at UFC 135 where the altitude claimed several heavyweight victims that night. Cain out worked him and got a TKO from an accumulation of punches.

The next two fights were the crowning moments of his career. An incredible first round TKO of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira followed by a first round TKO of former champ Brock Lesnar, earning Cain the UFC heavyweight title. These were two fights against men whose standup was clearly worse than himself and seemingly didn't show up to out work Cain, as Minotauro had little the way of striking and Brock ran out like a madman, trying to finish Cain off.

Cain had never faced off against an opponent with as much hype surrounding them as he, himself had. Cain ran through these men and climbed to the top in rapid succession. Junior was his first true test and Cain now knows where his once flawless game plan can improve. This loss might make the best Cain we've ever seen.

We all want to know how the former champ will respond to his first professional loss and in such devastating fashion. Well I'm sure he'll be alright.

Cain Velasquez has an absolutely undeniably amount of heart and drive that few people in the world possess. He trains harder, longer, and more efficiently than most in the UFC and puts that training to work as he often out classes fighters and walks out of the octagon with barely any sign of fatigue.

Like I said before, Cain will only learn from this as even his post fight interview after his loss to dos Santos was extremely humble and surely gained him even more respect even from those who aren't fans of the Mexican heavyweight. Cain now waits for a challenger.

Velasquez will most likely face the loser between Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem after they fight at UFC 141. Either fight will be great with Velasquez probably hoping for a shot against Overeem as to add another notch on his belt. A rematch with Brock will probably result in more of the same as Lesnar didn't like the power that Velasquez possessed during their first fight.

If Cain can win his next fight he will most likely be next in line for a title shot against whoever the champ is at the time as the winner of Lesnar/Overeem moves up to fight dos Santos. Velasquez would love to gain a win over Overeem and then be given the chance to fight dos Santos to exact revenge and reclaim his title belt. This is if all the right stars align however.

Either way, Velasquez isn't a one-trick pony that will soon fizzle out and find himself among the obscure fighters who are seemingly lost in an endless limbo between title contention and just contention ala` Roy Nelson. Velasquez will return a bigger, badder, and scarier monster than he was while he rose the ranks the first time.

Original Story: http://couchfighter.co/news/fighters/...