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08/01/10 - Dos Santos feared CroCop more than Lesnar; gets brown belt
Junior ‘Cigano’ Dos Santos says facing Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic caused him more nerves than the thought of facing UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar, even though Filipovic appears to have lost the world beating form he used to terrorise the PRIDE FC heavyweight division.
Dos Santos stopped Filipovic in the third round of their fight at UFC 103, seemingly taking all the fight out of the Croatian with his heavy boxing. But Dos Santos said that the fight was his most painful to date.
“I was more nervous facing CroCop than I would be for Lesnar. Cro Cop is a very dangerous guy. If he can just connect that shot from the left then the fight is over,” Dos Santos laughed to Brazilian MMA portal Terra Magazine.
“It was a very worrying fight for me, I was switched on all the time. I was very fast, because I trained a lot of speed to escape his kicks. But after the fight I was hurting a lot. It was the hardest fight I've done in the UFC. Cro Cop when focused is one of the best.”
Dos Santos also revealed that he was promoted to brown belt just two weeks before his fight with Gilbert Yvel at UFC 108, and expects to have his next opponent determined by the end of the month.
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