Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos certainly isn’t thinking about retirement right now. Dos Santos recently shared the cage with an old foe under bare knuckle MMA rules. “Cigano” went one-on-one with fellow legend Fabricio Werdum earlier this month. It was Werdum’s chance to avenge his now-famous 2008 loss to Dos Santos, which was held under the UFC banner.
Ultimately, “Vai Cavalo” once again fell short against Dos Santos, this time via split decision. After the fight, Dos Santos appeared to be quite happy with his handiwork. He didn’t look like someone on the verge of retirement, and he has confirmed plans to continue fighting.
Junior Dos Santos Sticking Around Fight Game
During an interview with TMZ Sports, Junior Dos Santos made it clear that he wants to keep throwing punches and kicks until he feels he isn’t viable inside the cage anymore.
“Right now I go to the gym and I see my performance, I see the love, everything is there. I want to keep going. As soon as I go to the gym or I’m fighting or something like that and I’m not delivering anymore, I’ll tell myself, I’ll see that, I cannot do this anymore. This is kind of dangerous for me … but right now I feel great!”
With the victory over Werdum, Dos Santos snapped a five-fight losing streak. He hadn’t won a pro MMA bout since March 2019. Now that he’s back in the win column, the Brazilian bruiser is looking forward to what’s next at this stage of his career.
It’ll be interesting to see if Dos Santos will keep competing under bare knuckle rules, or if he’ll put the gloves back on moving forward. In the end, it may simply come down to which promotion is willing to pay the most, regardless of the ruleset. Time will tell what “Cigano” does next.
