Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour and discussed Saturday’s title fight between champion Stipe Miocic and challenger Alistair Overeem at UFC 203.
Velasquez said he has no dog in that fight. His sole concern is that he gets a title shot at the winner. He feels his dispatching of Travis Browne in under one round at UFC 200 cemented that. He is probably right.
However, the fight before Browne was a loss and loss of his title to now former champion Fabricio Werdum. If Werdum beats Browne spectacularly, he could get the title shot instead. And Browne conceded that he had not heard definitively from the UFC that he is next in line.
If he does get the shot, he sounded equally happy to fight either Miocic or Overeem, who ever is better.
“I’m not much of a guy who picks fights,” said Velasquez, as transcribed by Dave Doyle for MMA Fighting. “I don’t care who wins. I’m not a fight fan really, I don’t really care who wins, I want the best guy to win and i want to fight the best guy, that’s how I see it.
“Overeem’s a great standup guy wants to keep it on feet, where I feel Stipe is more similar to my style. He does everything really well, he’s conditioned, he’s a smaller heavyweight. I feel like both guys post threats in their own right, but with my style of fighting I can beat both those guys.”
Cain’s greatest foe has been himself, not in the sense of a work ethic unequal to his talent, but perhaps in the opposite sense – he works until he breaks down and is injured. He was adamant that when not injured, he is the baddest man on the planet.
“People know that if I’m 100 percent going into the fight, that there’s no one out there that can touch me,” said Velasquez. “I still feel that way going in to practice every day.”
“There’s just some things that I’ve had to change to be that guy again. It’s just more rest during my workouts, during the camps, more maintenance to my body, and with that, I’m able to perform the way I want to.”
