One man, nearing the mountain top, Junior Dos Santos starts the show off with highlights of his eye popping knockouts. Another man, Shane Carwin, also has his eyes on the prize. Junior touts how even though Carwin has finished his fights in the first round, this fight will be different. If this fight ends in the first round, says Dos Santos, it will be at his doing.
Looking back at his fight with Brock brings a hurt tone to Carwin’s voice. They replay the famous shot of Carwin saying “My legs are shot.” They bring up Carwin’s surgeries to prepare for this fight. Apparently, his verterbrae had grown together.
In the midst of training for Jon Oliv Einemo ,he gets the news that Brock is out of his fight with Dos Santos for the number one contendership. He immediately accepts the fight against a fighter who we are soon shown has been on a tear in the UFC. They show highlights of his past fights, including his brilliant knockout of Fabricio Werdum in his debut. Incredible to believe that he was a huge underdog going into the fight, and in fact had not fought outside of Brazil until that day.
Dos Santos was originally slated to face Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez at UFC 131, but with Cain’s shoulder injury, he took a fight with Lesnar. With the late change of opponent he now has to overhaul his training to take into account Carwin’s greater threat standing. There’s back and forth argument about who has the stronger hands and the better boxing. Carwin claims his wrestling skills will be the difference. Dos Santos believes that having trained to face Lesnar he’ll be prepared for Carwin’s takedowns and that his speed will kill Carwin.
Diego Nunes Vs. Kenny Florian, in what is Florian’s featherweight debut. They start off by looking at Nunes’ road to the UFC. Born and raised in Brazil, he started fighting at age 15. He always wanted to be a professional fighter, but it was looked down upon in his hometown. So at age 20 he leaves home for Rio to train and fight. His only support during this time came from God. Nunes went 11-0 before making it to the WEC. He made his UFC debut in January of this year, against former champion Mike Brown. His eye was completely closed during the fight, but he pushed on and took the victory. To him, Kenny Florian is a major stepping stone to better things.
Kenny Florian discusses the size difference in the different fighters on the card. He’s the first fighter to fight in four different weight classes. The fights he wanted at 155 weren’t there, so he moved to 145. He believes that he was being muscled around at 155, so he moved down. His diet is discussed, and how much he loves eating, but can’t eat what he wants anymore. He feels that he matches up the best with Jose Aldo, the current featherweight champion. It’ll be a striking war says Florian, and Nunes agrees although points out that Florian goes to the ground when he gets nervous. They end the segment with Nunes claiming that God will give him this victory.
Onto Mark Munoz Vs. Demian Maia. They touch on their specialties, with Maia’s being BJJ, and Munoz’s being wrestling. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira talks about how Munoz has helped him with his wrestling, while Munoz explains how his first training session was with Randy Couture, something that hooked him on fighting as Randy told him he was the real natural.
They move onto Munoz’s TKO of C.B. Dolloway, and how that gave him confidence in his standup, an aspect of his game that doesn’t come naturally to him. He trains in Lake Forest, California, where he continues to teach wrestling. He shows a great attitude, saying that he is a lucky man already and he’ll let the chips fall where they may.
Moving onto Maia, and his failed attempt at Anderson Silva. His victory over Kendall Grove showed his improved standup skills. He is in fact focused on his standup for this fight, having trained with Junior Dos Santos. Maia admits that Munoz is more of a knockout artist than he is, as he uses his standup to soften up his opponents for the takedown. His bread and butter will always be BJJ. Maia believes that this fight will be a turning point, as he hopes to get another title shot with this victory.
