UFC Heavyweight Contender Junior dos Santos Photo: via MMAWeekly

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Junior dos Santos was supposed to fight Gabriel Gonzaga at UFC 108, but Gonzaga had to pull out of the bout with a staph infection.  However, dos Santos indicated to Tatame that he still would like to fight on the card but agrees that the options are few:

“I’ll tell you, I was thinking about that“, reveals, laughing. “UFC has no options. Cain Velasquez might fight Rodrigo (Nogueira) in February, it looks like (Shane) Carwin went on surgery on his hand, I don’t know. There are some new guys on the UFC, but we hope that they match with someone more known on UFC“.

 

“I face anyone. I’m training for a long time and I’ll be ready“, guarantees. “It’s not good to wait to don’t lose the rhythm. I was on this fight and it’s not nice to take the focus off. I have one month to the fight and whoever it is, I prefer to fight."

If dos Santos remains on the card, I just don't see a logical fight for him.  There's no reason for him to take a gimmie fight at this point and risk injury or a hailmary defeat against a lesser opponent.  I understand that he has been training for this fight and would like to keep that mindset, but I think he should just fall back at this point.  Gonzaga is the perfect opponent for him to face next.  Someone that's battle tested, good on the ground, and just as big as dos Santos is.