Emotions are a key element of all sports, and in no sport is that sentiment more true than mixed martial arts. All sports give participants the opportunity to best their rivals in an athletic competition, but MMA provides the additional perk of letting competitors impose physical dominance and actually hurt such foes.
A natural risk of that reality is that fighters will prefer matches with personal rivals over those that align with the pure sports perspective.
Even though Carlos Condit established himself as the interim UFC Welterweight Champion and the next logical opponent for injured champion Georges St. Pierre, GSP’s personal frustration with Nick Diaz was so great that he allegedly offered to vacate the title in order to instead fight Diaz.
Junior dos Santos is not going that far, but his sentiment regarding Alistair Overeem is essentially the same. UFC President Dana White confirmed at the Saturday UFC on FOX press conference that JDS would rather fight suspended Overeem than Cain Velasquez, who earned a title rematch after dominating Antonio Silva this May.
“I sat down with Junior Dos Santos yesterday,” said White. “He’s the nicest guy in the world, but he said, ‘I have nothing but respect for Cain Velasquez. I like him as a person and as a fighter, and I think he deserves the shot at the title. But I do not want to fight him,’ which is not what he said a month ago.”
The reason for his position is frustration with words Alistair Overeem has directed at JDS in recent months.
Noted White, “He said, ‘Alistair Overeem is a punk. He’s got a big mouth, and he’s been saying lots of bad things about me, and I want to knock him out. I want to knock him out now.'”
UFC has not officially confirmed a date for Junior dos Santos vs. Cain Velasquez, so the promotion could theoretically choose to instead go with Junior dos Santos vs. Alistair Overeem, the match originally scheduled for the “Heavyweights” show this past May, once Overeem returns from suspension.
White would not, however, confirm that UFC is actually looking at throwing Overeem ahead of Velasquez in the title mix.
