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Raising Cain proving to be painful affair for opponents in mixed martial arts |
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Written by Neil Davidson, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Wednesday, 16 July 2008 |
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Cain Velasquez came into the UFC with the reputation of a big, accomplished wrestler.
So what does he do in his debut at UFC 83 in Montreal in April? He showcased some smart striking skills, battering Australian heavyweight Brad Morris en route to a TKO just 130 seconds into the first round.
"I've been feeling really comfortable with my striking," explained the two-time all-American wrestler from Arizona State. "I wanted to show people that I'm not just a wrestler, I can go out and strike with those guys."
Count Morris as one of the early believers. Velasquez hammered him from the get-go.
He's not the only one. Velasquez's pro career in mixed martial arts reads three wins, no losses and has lasted a total of eight minutes eight seconds. He has yet to see the second round.
On Saturday, the six-foot-one, 240-pound Velasquez renews acquaintances with (Irish) Jake O'Brien on the undercard of the Anderson Silva-James (The Sandman) Irvin main event at The Palms in Las Vegas (Spike TV, 9 p.m. ET).
The two met while O'Brien was at Purdue, with Velasquez coming out on top in their 2005 encounter, at a Las Vegas tournament.
"I don't know what the score was but I think I beat him pretty good," said Velasquez. "But then again that was a while ago and it was a wrestling match. It wasn't a fight. So I can't really go off that."
O'Brien (10-1) is coming off his first loss as a pro - a second-round TKO to former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski at UFC 82 in March. Prior to that, he was sidelined for more than a year due to a "stinger" nerve injury that required surgery in the wake of his upset win over Heath Herring in January 2007.
At the time, Herring was a big-name fighter coming over from Pride Fighting Championships in Japan. But the Texas Crazy Horse had no answer to O'Brien's takedowns and flopped impotently around the canvas with the six-foot-three, 230-pound O'Brien on top of him.
Velasquez, 25, rates O'Brien highly, pointing to his experience and takedown ability. He expects the 23-year-old O'Brien to want to wrestle some more Saturday night.
"That's the only way I've seen him fight," he said.
Velasquez decided on a career in MMA in his junior year at college in 2005, a year in which he was named the top wrestler in the Pac-10 after going 36-4.
He told his coach, Tom Ortiz, who said he would help him if he took care of his school and wrestling first. He did and Ortiz came through, hooking up with manager DeWayne Zinkin and the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, home to the likes of Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, Mike Swick, Josh Thompson and Christian Wellisch.
Velasquez also got to train with Lyoto Machida when the unbeaten Brazilian dropped into AKA to prepare for his Tito Ortiz fight at UFC 84 in May.
"He's a great training partner. I learned a lot from the way he fights," he said.
More recently, Brandon (The Truth) Vera came by to get ready for his fight with Reese Andy on Saturday's card.
Velasquez, who wrestled at 285 pounds in college, relishes the variety - in training partners and the sport of mixed martial arts.
"There's so much you can do now," Velasquez.
"I wanted to do a little more, I wanted to hit the guy while I was wrestling. You couldn't do that but now you can. You can do almost anything. I love it."
Born in Salinas, Calif., he grew up in Yuma, Ariz. He got into sports in junior high, taking up wrestling as well as football.
He never really had any striking experience prior to beginning MMA but soon took to it.
"I really enjoyed the striking part of it. I really paid a lot of attention to that part of the game."
He spent some six months training before his first fight, a first-round TKO in Strike Force in October 2006. Two months later he notched a KO in Bodog, but broke his hand in the process.
The hand healed but he promptly rebroke it. When he was good to go again, Velasquez's bid to get back in the sport gradually was frustrated by bouts that broke down at the last minute in smaller shows. He reckons that happened six times until his camp decided they might as well just head straight for the UFC.
Middleweight C.B. Dollaway, a former teammate and all-American at Arizona State, is also in Saturday's card. The runner-up in Season 7 of "The Ultimate Fighter" meets Jesse Taylor, who was booted off the show because of a drunken escapade.
Dollaway and Taylor also met in college, with Dollaway winning all three of their encounters. Taylor competed for Cal-State Fullerton.
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