UFC 108 Will Feature Nogueira vs. Velasquez

With the already postponed Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin now being forced off the January 2nd UFC 108 event due to Lesnar’s continued battle with mononucleosis, the UFC has been scrambling to come up with a replacement. B.J. Penn is fighting on December 12th against Diego Sanchez, Georges St-Pierre is injured, Anderson Silva is recovering from surgery, Lyoto Machida is promised to Shogun Rua (and is also injured), and the aforementioned Lesnar is on the shelf. In short, there is a shortage of true headliners at Dana White’s disposal at the moment. Enter the only fighter to hold both a PRIDE and UFC Heavyweight (though it was the interim strap) belts, alongside the newest legitimized beast in the division: Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira and Cain Velasquez.

Prior to his August bout with Randy Couture, Nogueira was seemingly near the end of his career. Looking much older than a man in his early thirties, “Big Nog” is enjoying a renaissance of sorts following his entertaining victory over “The Natural.” With his win, the bigger of the Nogueira twins appears lined up for another shot at the belt. Standing in his way will be the San Jose-based Cain Velasquez, who dominated the much more experienced Ben Rothwell en route to a TKO victory at UFC 104 in October. Hype surrounding the American Kickboxing Academy product has been building for months, and with his win over the game Rothwell, the stage is set for these two to battle with a lot at stake. According to several reports, the bout between the two will take place at UFC 108, and the winner will get the first shot at the winner of Lesnar-Carwin.

Velasquez quieted a lot of his critics with his crushing performance at 104, and his path to the belt is now clear. He will have to take on one of the heavyweight division’s true legends in Nogueira, and we will find out how good Velasquez’s submission defense is. Nogueira may also enjoy the advantage on their feet, as though he may not have the punching power Velasquez does, he more than likely possesses more technical striking skill than the young wrestler. However, the Brazilian submission machine has shown a penchant for taking terrible beatings from ground-and-pounders, and that is something he’ll have to avoid against a smashing machine like Velasquez. The bout exhibits two distinct styles: jiu-jitsu and wrestling. On January 2nd, we’ll find out which is more effective.

Source: www.examiner.com