After the fight against Overeem, Junior Dos Santos faced Ben Rothwell. Even Rothwell coming from four straight wins, including a knockout against Overeem, the american was not the favorite in this fight. Junior dos Santos is far superior in boxing. Rothwell has a poor footwork and disfavors slow strikes. This was the fight for Cigano to erase his last defeat. When the fight started it was visible as the Brazilian was much more cautious than normal. He was not releasing the strikes. He avoided the beginning of the fight. Until he received a punch and opened the eyebrow, this made the situation worse and he had to run through the octagon. He continued to take punches for the first three minutes, until Rothwell tired and dos Santos could breathe to strike again. Junior dos Santos was prepared to fight five rounds as three of his last five fights had reached the fifth round. While Rothwell is barely accustomed to having to fight a third round. Despite not having a good performance, the Brazilian did not have many problems to win the following rounds. Except it was expected of him, a win for knockout within the 25-minute fight.

Miocic lives his best moment inside the UFC. His last defeat was in 2014 exactly against Junior dos Santos. The duel between them in UFC on FOX 13 was very disputed. After five rounds, the decision went to the judges and any of them could have been a winner. After two straight knockouts, against Mark Hunt and Arlovski, Miocic had his chance against Werdum for the heavyweight belt in Brazil. Without feeling the pressure of the fans, Miocic knocked out Werdum in the first round. His first belt defense was against Overeem, who had just beat Junior dos Santos. Again with a knockout in the first round, Miocic won.


If we are going to check the fights following the duel of the two in 2014, we will see four Miocic knockout victories, two in their opponent's country. While Junior dos Santos made only two fights, being knocked out in one and having difficulties to beat an inferior opponent.

Miocic is in a better phase. More confident. He evolved more than his opponent. Junior dos Santos showed many flaws in his last fight, which can be taken advantage of by Miocic. The script for this fight should look pretty much like the previous one, with the two going into striking in a beautiful boxing match. But in this new duel of five rounds, Miocic  fix the small details that missed the last time and win this fight by decision or even get a knockout in a Junior of Santos that no longer has the same absorption of strikes of before.

It is interesting to see that the market opened with the line of rounds at 1.5, even the last fight having reached the five rounds. If I had to bet on who has the knockout power up, I would go from Miocic to TKO / KO (2.54). But for believing that the two can reissue the last duel, only with a different final result ... the safe bet would be the simple victory of Miocic (1.80) since the odds is good.