JDS says he looked ‘worse than he was’ in fights with Cain Velasquez

Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos (17-4 MMA) has been in a bit of a slump, going a mere 2-3 during his past five octagon appearances.

Although only 32 years of age, “JDS” has been through plenty of wars, most notably his final two bouts with rival Cain Velasquez in which he took a considerable amount of punishment.

“Cigano” spoke with Ariel Helwani on the most recent edition of The MMA Hour where he stated that those fights (with Cain) were not as bad as they actually looked:

“Yes, there were some tough fights for me. I took a lot of damage, but I get swollen very easy and I get cut very easy too. For the people that were watching the fight, I was looking worse than I really was, you know? Those fights were pretty hard for me, but I’m learning with everything.”

As for his most recent loss to former Strikeforce titleholder Alistair Overeem, “JDS” says the TKO-setback was due to his own timid performance:

“This one now, with Alistair Overeem, was something very, very strange for me. That’s hard, that’s really hard part of the game.”

The former heavyweight kingpin, Dos Santos, says he plans on fighting as long as he can, hopefully as long as UFC legend Randy Couture did:

“(I will fight) as long as I can, you know? I wanna have a long career, for sure,” he said. “I know I’m not showing for everybody everything that I got to show, so I’m working on these things. As soon as I find myself in the Octagon again, I’ll be okay to put on a good performance and get back to my winning streak. I wanna fight as long as I can. I wanna be like Randy Couture, who fought until he was 47 years old or something. I wanna be one of those guys.”

“JDS” returns to the octagon on April 10 where he will meet surging heavyweight contender Ben Rothwell in the main event of UFC Fight Night 86.