"Junior Dos Santos Was Never The Same After The Cain Trilogy"...

[Bend NvR Break]

I strongly disagree.
Not everyone responds to damage the same way. One fighter might be okay going through wars over and over again and others might be toast after one tough beating.

I also kind of think you're missing the argument of the initial claim; it's not that he magically left his prime in the sense that he lost his attributes, it's more of a psychological thing.
The beating was so bad on him 2xs in a row that it mentally fucked him up.
I don't have the stats on hand to back this up, but purely from the eye test and his up and down record JDS went from being a super confident striker to being much more tentative.
That's one of the tell-tale signs of a fighter being past it, having an unwillingness to throw.

He did have some good wins after Cain , like Mark Hunt and Derrick Lewis, but he was very clearly more aggressive and accurate pre-Cain.

Side Tangent: Cain is the most overrated fighter in the UFCs history. His resumé is nothing spectacular at all and it's harious to me when people include him in HW GOAT conversations.

That last part is true. People that say Cain was or could've been (without injury) the GOAT HW are parroting Rogan and schilling for the UFC.

 

[650lb Sumo]

Those two beatings Cain gave him left him a changed man. USADA, age, being figured out and damage accumulated in other fights all took their toll but JDS was never the same mentally or physically after Cain 2 and 3.

 

[NoSmilez]

I will go full sherdog and say he lost his edge when he lost his hair by totally shaving it. Now to go look online and see if that is the truth lol

edit: lol I might be correct. he started shaving his head in 2015 and that was same year he fought Overeem with a baldie.

 

[IndyCovaHart]

no Kane stoal his sole

 

[kellier]

He still had enough in the tank to beat Stipe after the 3rd fight with Cain.

Overeem KO was the straw that broke the camels back. He folded early in the Stipe rematch and Ngannou didn't catch him clean. He just wasn't able to take hard shots anymore

 

[MCS]

It was too soon as the Rothwell fight was a complete domination and he beat Stipe. Many here went with Rothwell because of the narrative.

But then his durability went pretty much completely. So the lasting effect of those fights was probably right at the time, by chance. And him taking damage after those, like vs Stipe.

 

[Poatan Power]

JDS can still have been high level after that trilogy taking something from him. We see that a lot.

I wish we had more entertaining HW's like Cain and JDS around in the HW division today. It's still much thinner than it should be in 2021.

 

[Deleted member 577981]

Sir, the entire point of this is evaluating JDS's performance as a fighter immediately after Cain won the trilogy so again, can you perhaps describe how the fight immediately after the third Cain fight went and in what aspect of the fight did JDS show to you that he declined in whatever way?

Yeah but i made my own point and observation which is slightly tangencial to the ts but nonetheless relevant to the discussion. Im glad you caught on.

 

[gluehuffer1776]

We all know the real reason for decline...

He went from this wife
View attachment 885766
To this one View attachment 885767

Probably spent a lot more time at the gym during the first marriage.

ugly wife jds would probably be hw goat. him getting divorced is what destroyed his career

 

[TerrorTimmy]

He literally got mauled for 50+ minutes over those two fights (not counting the first one).

Yes. That absolutely had a negative impact on him. He was never the same fighter again, and offering examples with different fighters doesn't change anything for JDS. I love JDS but the guy was done after the third Cain fight.

Why is this even a discussion? It's a fact, not an opinion. Anyone with eyes can see what happened.

 

[MeagoR]

Cain wasnt the same after the trilogy

 

[Miokink026]

No I mean what my comment said, USADA came in 2015, so after the Stipe fight you mentioned. The damage Cain did to him + USADA = JDS fighting like a shell of his former self.

Ah yes, JDS popped right? Damn, I really want to say he's not the type of guy to take steroids but that is both illogical and goes against what I always say, that once a fighter pops then there's no doubt he's on PEDs.

 

[Miokink026]

He literally got mauled for 50+ minutes over those two fights (not counting the first one).

Yes. That absolutely had a negative impact on him. He was never the same fighter again, and offering examples with different fighters doesn't change anything for JDS. I love JDS but the guy was done after the third Cain fight.

Why is this even a discussion? It's a fact, not an opinion. Anyone with eyes can see what happened.

Sir, can you perhaps describe how the fight immediately after the third Cain fight went and in what aspect of the fight did JDS show to you that he declined in whatever way?

Let's see how your "eyes" hold up against real facts.

 

[GNRXI]

I strongly disagree.
Not everyone responds to damage the same way. One fighter might be okay going through wars over and over again and others might be toast after one tough beating.

I also kind of think you're missing the argument of the initial claim; it's not that he magically left his prime in the sense that he lost his attributes, it's more of a psychological thing.
The beating was so bad on him 2xs in a row that it mentally fucked him up.
I don't have the stats on hand to back this up, but purely from the eye test and his up and down record JDS went from being a super confident striker to being much more tentative.
That's one of the tell-tale signs of a fighter being past it, having an unwillingness to throw.

He did have some good wins after Cain , like Mark Hunt and Derrick Lewis, but he was very clearly more aggressive and accurate pre-Cain.

Side Tangent: Cain is the most overrated fighter in the UFCs history. His resumé is nothing spectacular at all and it's harious to me when people include him in HW GOAT conversations.

Nah Cain isn't overrated. He isn't a top 5 HW GOAT for sure like many people say he is, but 2 Title wins + 2 Defences + destroying JDS/Bigfoot twice and slapping Brock isn't overrated. I agree his resume isn't impressive as compared to JDS though but overrated is a far stretch. Still comfortably a top 10 HW ever.

 

[countswagula]

You can definitely map his physical decline with the Cain trilogy as a clear point of reference(the second and third fights at any rate).

I do agree that it doesn't necessarily mean those fights are necessarily the only direct contributor to his decline. After all, Cain also fell off after the trilogy and he was the one dishing out the punishment for the most part.

The "Cain trilogy" actually spanned a number of years that coincided to where you'd generally expect JDS and Cain to peak and start to decline based on their age. Both suffered multiple injuries in training during that timespan, and USADA also came into the picture. I'm a big JDS fan, but he was definitely one of the guys most visibly affected by the more stringent drug testing.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

Immediately after the second Cain fight

He fought Mark Hunt not Stipe.
He had 10 fights after the first Stipe fight. He lost 6 of 10 but the thing is they were all by KO.

 

[Deleted member 110072]

Sir, can you perhaps describe how the fight immediately after the third Cain fight went and in what aspect of the fight did JDS show to you that he declined in whatever way?

Let's see how your "eyes" hold up against real facts.

I think the Hunt fight really does show you how big a role tactics played, perhaps Hunt would have fought that way anyway but a lot of his sucess against Jnr was pushing him back to the cage.

I actually think that JDS benefited a lot from the Werdum match KO, he just burst onto the scene with such a massive KO that I think there was a fear factor around him after that. Everyone was giving him tons of respect which I think played into his hands, even Cain the first time, fight might only have laste d a min but thats still way longer than Cain ever gave JDS in the rematches in terms of staying at long range.

You could say maybe Cain and AKA were inspired a bit by the JDS/Mir fight? I felt that was the first time we saw JDS looking a bit vunerable, still ontop but Mir did push forward more than anyone else had and had some sucess.

I would say though it is hard to tell how much was opponents shifting tactics and how much was JDS losing confidence and not getting on the front foot as much.

 

[Winston Wolf]

He was never the most skilled striker in the division, nor the most powerful. He was just really quick for a heavyweight and had a TON of confidence in himself.

His speed did deteriorate naturally with age, but IMO what really caused him to decline following JDS-Velasquez II and III was his complete loss of confidence. He became hesitant, never pulled the trigger, no longer had any killer instinct. And his defense remained terrible (or should I say nonexistent). A recipe for disaster especially @ HW.

 

[mkt]

It was like one day his precise striking left and never came back. It was weird but Canelo and Khabib said once you take time off it never comes back so you have to constantly work to keep your prime.

I don't think JDS' striking just left after a single fight, though. Even after the two Cain losses, his striking looked good vs. Hunt, Stipe (first fight--when most of us didn't know how good Stipe was), Rothwell and Lewis. But it wasn't consistent. The Overeem fight was his most disappointing. He didn't fight like his old self. He even stunned Overeem at one point, but didn't chase him down and go for the kill--which worked for almost everyone else vs. Overeem. Instead he held back and later got KO'd himself.

 

[pick999]

He still beat Miocic after the Cain fights and I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back. After that his chin was clearly not the same. Prime JDS ate bombs for lunch.

The real key to Junior's career is the Mark Hunt fight. He dominated and got a great finish but the writing was on the wall. He was still backing up in a straight line and letting Mark trap him against the side of the octagon and land bombs. It was clear that he hadn't learned or changed anything significant about how he fought and that Cain would beat him again.

He fought exciting vs hunt