JDS: Yes, Rothwell fight is do or die for me
Junior dos Santos: “Yeah, for sure. I think it’s a very important fight for me. Right now, I feel this fight that I have with Ben Rothwell is tougher than my last fight.”
Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, ahead of his headlining fight with Ben Rothwell at UFC Fight Night 86 on April 10, in Zagreb, Croatia. The Brazilian has alternated wins and losses his last six fights, dropping two to Cain Velasquez, and most recently getting knocked out by Alistair Overeem in the second. Rothwell is on a four-fight win streak.
The fighter was asked if this is a do or die moment for him in the UFC?.
“Yeah, for sure,” said dos Santos, as transcribed by Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. “I think it’s a very important fight for me. Right now, I feel this fight that I have with Ben Rothwell is tougher than my last fight. I know I had a negative result in my last fight but this one now, I think if I win, and I will win this fight now, this win will put me back in the place I was before, the number one or two in the rankings and close to a title fight again. Of course I’m not thinking about title fight now, I just wanna be in the best position I can. It’s my whole life, it’s very important for me.”
“I’m sure I got everything that it takes to be the champion again, so I just need to put everything in the right place, including my mind, my head, because we have to be confident. To deal with this negative moment for me has been very tough because since my debut in the UFC in 2008, I just had victories, victories and victories until I became champion of the world. Then I lost to Cain Velasquez, I started to live bad, bad moments, including with injuries, and I’m trying to go out of those moments and start living the winning moments again. That’s why I’m working so hard now.”
“I didn’t have any injuries so that’s why I asked Joe Silva and the UFC, ‘as soon as possible, I wanna fight again.’ I wanna keep a better sequence of fights because, like I told you, these last two years for me were terrible. Many, many injuries, some hard moments.
“Of course, I lived some good moments. Even with the injury and everything, I won the fight against Miocic, but the moment that I’m living now is not that good, I’m coming from negative results, so I want to change these things and get back to my winning streak. I believe deep in my heart that I can be champion again, and I will.”
In his last fight, Rothwell tapped out catch wrestling master Josh Barnett, for the first time, using a guillotine variation that his team calls a Gogo Choke.
“I think that’s very effective, right?” said dos Santos. “But yeah, I think I can defend that, but I don’t wanna try that. I wanna avoid that thing. I don’t wanna be in that position any time, any moment during the fight. As I could see, that works a lot, so I wanna avoid that choke.
“He’s doing great, especially his last fight against Barnett. Nobody ever submitted Barnett and he did that. That was impressive. He’s coming from a great moment and that’s why it’s so important for me to fight him.”
