The best and worst from UFC Fight Night 133

#2 Worst: Is Dos Santos really back?

Junior dos Santos won, but still had problems with Blagoy Ivanov

Looking online after the show had finished, you’d have thought that Junior Dos Santos had dispatched of Blagoy Ivanov with a first-round knockout, there were that many calls that “JDS is back!” Unfortunately, while the former champion clearly won the fight – although I wouldn’t have given him a 50-45 scorecard – the only version of JDS that appeared to be “back” was the tentative shell of ‘Cigano’ that we’ve been seeing largely since 2013.

Sure, he put together some nice boxing combinations, threw in some flashy kicks for good measure, and appeared to have Ivanov in trouble in the fourth round, but he also took a lot of damage from the Bulgarian’s wilder punches – he arguably looked more of a mess than Ivanov by the end of the fight – and he spent much of the fifth round backing up despite Ivanov’s gas tank clearly being compromised.

Throw in the fact that physically, he didn’t look anywhere near as chiselled as he did in his 2010-12 prime, and I think it’s time to accept that while he’ll be able to defeat somewhat limited opponents like Ivanov, JDS will probably never be a true title challenger again. He’s simply taken too much damage over the past few years from Cain Velasquez, Stipe Miocic and Alistair Overeem.

I don’t think he’d stand a chance against Curtis Blaydes or Alexander Volkov for instance, and I think even Tai Tuivasa could give him problems. For a guy who was once recognised as a potential all-time great, that’s sad.