Junior dos Santos: Heavyweights are using “made up excuses” to avoid fight

At one point in time, former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos was once regarded as the ‘baddest man on the planet‘. Now, following a unanimous decision win over Ben Rothwell back in April, dos Santos will be looking to move one step closer to a heavyweight title fight when he steps into the Octagon with Stefan Struve in February.

While ‘The Skyscraper’ is currently on a 2-fight win streak that has seen him KO Bigfoot Silva, and most recently submit Daniel Omielanczuk with a D’Arce choke, he is currently ranked at #11 on the UFC’s official rankings. With that being said, Junior Dos Santos, who is ranked at #4, knows the fight is a risky one. Unfortunately for ‘Cigano’ however, the rest of the heavyweight division hasn’t been chomping at the bit to share the Octagon with him.

He spoke to MMAJunkie:

“What I wanted was to fight. So I was happy he took the fight. It’s not relevant at the moment, but there were some athletes who kind of turned it down, made up excuses not to fight. So I was happy he took the fight.

“He’s coming off a good moment, good wins. He’s right there around the top 10 and I’m sure it will be a great fight.”

For Dos Santos of course, the goal is to once again reclaim the UFC heavyweight championship. The way he sees it, he has earned it:

“It’s not about whether I’m asking for it – I think I deserve it,” Dos Santos said. “I’m coming off a win over Ben Rothwell, the guy who was going to fight for the belt even before Alistair Overeem, had he beat me. He didn’t. I won the fight, so he fell a couple of spots. And I ended up not climbing any.

“So it’s not that I wanted to fight Miocic, I was deserving of it. Velasquez and Werdum both come off wins over Travis Browne, who wasn’t close to fighting for the belt. So, given all these factors, I think I deserved it. But unfortunately it couldn’t happen now. I know it will happen and it won’t be too long before it does. My goal right now is to perform well.”