Luiz Dorea is a Boxing coach and mentor of Junior Dos Santos, the next UFC Heavyweight Challenger. Dorea talked with us about the next fight of your student.
How is Dos Santo’s training for this fight against Velasquez?
We are doing a lot of groundwork, as we have not confirmed the date of the fight. Dos Santos is an athlete, so he did not stop training. Whether he is fighting or not, he is always learning and growing. He is very young and has only three years in MMA. He is training hard and doing the groundwork. We’re working hard in Muay Thai and boxing. He was also a good time training wrestling at San Diego, California. He trained jiu-jitsu with Rodrigo and Rogerio, also in San Diego, and with Yuri and Demian, in Bahia. Work is continuing for he arrives well prepared for the fight. He participated in the Anderson camp, in Rio de Janeiro. Anderson is also training a lot and showed a few positions of Muay Thai to him. Once the date is confirmed, we will outline our plans and determine what will be his trainings. The work is being done very well. Dos Santos is an athlete and don’t stop to train.
What do you think of Velázquez? What is the danger that he can provide?
Velasquez is a great athlete and is very well physically. He really is a fighter that punches well and kicks well. He is a great wrestler and has a reasonable ground. I think he’s a complete MMA fighter. He is well trained and focused for this fight. Nevertheless, Dos Santos is an athlete who was scheduled to be a champion. If you have followed all his six fights, he reached the condition he is today by merit. He debuted against a great athlete who is Werdum, then fought against Stefan Struve, who is making great fights, in the third he faced one of the greatest strikers in the world, which is the Cro Cop, in the fourth Gilbert Yvel, the fifth against Gonzaga, which is another excellent athlete, and Roy Nelson in sixth, which showed an incredible power to overcome. Dos Santos has learned a lot more with it all and he won six fights and in five in first-round by knockout. Although he fights in the gym as sparring, he had never fought three rounds. This time he fought with Roy Nelson, was able to dose his gas and learned a lot. Dos Santos is in a deserved position. We strongly believe in the power he has both physical and technical. He punches very well and defends well. The fight with Cain is having a work directed to striking. Dos Santos has a good ground, train with Rodrigo, Rogerio, Feijão, Anderson, Demian, but relies too much on his punches and striking. Striking is his main quality. As in all his fights, our training was directed to boxing, defend take downs and boxing again. That’s how he did with Roy Nelson, but if he have to fight on the ground with Cain no problem. We strongly believe in the power of his hands, he has great skill and will be faster and stronger for this fight. We know that Cain is a great athlete, but he must be very hard for this fight. He will have to absorb many blows, as Dos Santos will go up. It will be a great fight, they are both great athletes, but I am very confident in Dos Santos.
It will be the first time that Dos Santos will face a fight of five rounds. Cain is known to be a fighter that has a gas that never ends. How will be his training in this regard?
He comes from another modality that is not MMA. The gas was not tested with him being beaten. Let’s see how he will behave being struck on the head and body. Dos Santos is an athlete and train with the best boxers of Brazil. He is one of the best MMA fighters in the world, is used and is going through everything. He is used to strike, be struck and is an athlete. I teach him from the beginning in our academy Champions until he was a champion. All are good and seek to improve every step, and then the training is hard for everyone. I saw Cain Velasquez being struck by Congo. We know the way to victory and let’s not forget that, that is, striking him in the head and body.
