After Junior Dos Santos was left without an opponent for his planned UFC Fight Night 105 appearance, many viewed former ex-champ Fabricio Werdum – who’d recently had his own UFC 208 appointment scrapped – as a good choice to fill in.
That included Dos Santos himself, who then said he couldn’t make much sense of why Werdum had turned down the booking for what he said was the third time in the past few months. Werdum, however, can offer his own explanation as to why the fight – which he says he didn’t get an official UFC offer for – was simply not the right fit for him at that moment.
“I wasn’t apt to fight him at that moment because as soon as they canceled the (Cain) Velasquez scrap, I stopped training entirely,” Werdum told MMAjunkie. “I really stopped. I traveled with my family, I did what I always do after I fight – I travel, do seminars, go on vacations. In my head, it was like I’d fought, because I’d prepared for that moment.
“I didn’t want what happened when I fought (Alistair) Overeem in Strikeforce, when I went past my point and went into overtraining, to happen again. So I stopped training, to get some rest. The body needs that. They speculated this fight with ‘Cigano’ – they never offered it to me officially, but they talked about me fighting him in February. But it wasn’t the time. When they schedule the fight with ‘Cigano,’ it won’t be right away. I’ll prepare for it.”
After failing to get an opponent, Dos Santos (18-4 MMA, 12-3 UFC) ended up being removed from the card altogether. Not too long after, a report was published on Brazilian website Combate pointing toward a rematch between Dos Santos and current titleholder Stipe Miocic (16-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) for the heavyweight belt.
The matchup, however, was never confirmed by the UFC – neither publicly nor to Werdum (21-6-1 MMA, 9-3 UFC), who, after reading the report just like everyone else, still believes he’s done enough to try to reclaim the belt from the man who took it from him.
“I don’t really think (Miocic vs. Dos Santos) is fair,” Werdum said. “Because I’m the last champ. Going by logic, there’s a (UFC) ranking, it’s there for a reason, and I’m the No. 1. Obviously it’s not a tournament, but I imagined the fight with Velasquez that didn’t happen as a semifinal. It was between Cain and I, and whoever won would fight for the belt. That was practically a given. That’s what everybody saw.
“But then the fight was canceled, which was a shame, so I thought, ‘Well, Cain is injured, so I’m next.’ I heard that Miocic was having contract issues, that he’s asking for more money – and I’m not criticizing him, I think it’s only right. That also happened to me. I think every fighter has the right to demand a little, what they deserve after becoming champ. But Miocic will only fight in June or July, and I’d wait. For the belt, I’d wait for sure.”
In spite of feeling like the logical contender, Werdum never got a call from the UFC in that regard. And, wondering whether some of his recent run-ins with the company might end up playing a part in the negotiations, he has one request should his shot get turned down.
“(The title shot) is what I imagined,” Werdum said. “I’m the first in the (UFC) rankings, Cain was the second, ‘Cigano’ was coming off a win but hadn’t fought for a while. So I thought it was me. Then it hasn’t happened, they haven’t even talked about that, maybe it was this situation that happened with the UFC, it could be, I don’t know. The UFC decides that.
“If that fight with ‘Cigano’ and Miocic happens, there’s nothing for me to do. I’ll have to accept it. Then the one thing I’ll ask the UFC is that I fight that same day.”
“I’ve fought the best in the world all this time, why would I be scared of ‘Cigano’?”
At this point, Werdum has grown accustomed to reading all sorts of comments, good or bad, online. But one thing that still puzzles him is when people accuse him of cowardice. As he approaches the 15-year benchmark in his MMA career, he believes he’s done more than enough to prove hat he’s not afraid of high-level competition.
But he’s also earned his right to say no.
“The criticism happens,” Werdum told MMAjunkie. “Of course everyone gives their opinion on social media, but we, the fighters, are the ones who know the truth. We’re the ones who know what we can or can’t do at a certain time. But we can’t say yes to everything. I’m not at that stage when I’m starting out my career and I have to accept all opportunities. It’s not like that anymore.
“It baffles me a little when fans go, ‘Oh, he’s scared, he’s running.’ There’s no such thing. I’ve been fighting for 20 years. I can’t understand that. People say that because they don’t get it. If I was running, I wouldn’t even have this job. I do it because I like fighting. I don’t have to fight – it’s not that I don’t have other options. But people say that, and it’s funny. ‘He’s scared. He’s running.’ I’ve fought the best in the world all this time, why would I be scared of ‘Cigano’? There’s no reason for that.
“It’s one thing to set a date for me to fight with ‘Cigano.’ That’s OK. But not to fill in, to step in for someone, as if it was this unique opportunity? It isn’t. I’m not starving, like, ‘I need to fight.’ I have a well-established life already. I don’t have to run after these things. It’s a different time and stage of my life.”
Not only is he not scared of Dos Santos, Werdum clarifies, he’d be more than willing to face him. In fact, he would even do it twice. First, they could fight for the UFC’s interim heavyweight title. Then,Werdum would be open to visiting the foe at his gym for an unofficial scrap – like a “sparring session, but at 100 percent.”
“I gave the (interim title) idea because ‘Cigano’ was saying a lot, and I couldn’t understand why he targeted me,” Werdum said. “Usually the target is the champion. That’s always the goal. So I didn’t understand why he was talking about me before the fight even happened. I saw an interview in which he said I was ‘a lie that worked out.’ That didn’t make any sense. I have a history in martial arts, I didn’t start yesterday.
“That’s why I joked – everyone knows that ‘Cigano’ is not gay, obviously, and I don’t have anything against gay people. But I joked that he needed to come out of the closet because he didn’t stop talking about me. If I were the champ, I’d understand it, but since I wasn’t, I couldn’t. So I challenged him. I told him that if Miocic didn’t fight because of his contract issues, I suggested an interim title fight with ‘Cigano.'”
“He wants to be the Brazilian (Conor) McGregor”
Currently ranked No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA heavyweight rankings, Werdum’s first choice of fight at this point is, of course, No. 1 Miocic. No. 4 Dos Santos for the interim belt, however, would be his next choice.
And feeling like his countryman might be underestimating him for that possible appointment, Werdum sees himself a much different fighter than the one who got knocked out in 80 seconds at UFC 90 in 2008.
“When I beat Cain Velasquez in Mexico, ‘Cigano’ was there.” Werdum recalled. “And my friends told me that he was rooting for me. No, he wasn’t rooting for me. He was rooting because, in his head, if I beat Cain – and Cain is Cigano’s ‘dad,’ as we say in the fight world when you beat a fighter twice. So, in his head, he thought, ‘If Werdum wins, I’ve already beat him. So it will be easier to beat him than to take the belt from Velasquez.’
“But he’s thinking I’m still that fighter from way back. But I know I’ve evolved a lot since then. Everyone sees it. The evolution I’ve had, I’ve changed entirely, and it’s clear. I’m not saying this to brag. I became UFC champ. That was a very important moment in my career because I wasn’t a professional. I just thought I was. I’m not making excuses for my loss, I’m just telling you what happened then.”
While Werdum is not one to mince words, he says that, as far as the Dos Santos back-and-forth goes, he’s only responding to the insults being thrown his way. And he’s not particularly impressed with this version of his foe.
“When ‘Cigano’ kept to himself, people liked him better,” Werdum said. “I see it on social media, that ‘Cigano’ has changed a lot. He wants to be the Brazilian (Conor) McGregor. He wants to be someone he’s not, and it’s clear that it doesn’t suit him. I’m not friends with him, but I see that it doesn’t suit him. He wants to play the talker, say stuff. That has happened to me, too.
“When I lost to him, I talked a lot. I was inexperienced. But what I remember, it was that it was lack of experience and lack of confidence at that time because I wasn’t trained for that fight, looking back. I thought I was well-trained, but I wasn’t. Now as a 100 percent professional, I wasn’t trained. I wasn’t ready for a UFC title shot. Because if I’d beat ‘Cigano,’ I’d have gone for a title shot. That was settled – and I wasn’t deserving of that.”
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