Junior dos Santos: A New Chapter

After once going five years between losses, former Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholder Junior dos Santos has arrived at the most critical moment of his career.

With three losses in his last five appearances, dos Santos wants to put the adversity behind him and start a new chapter in his career when he faces Ben Rothwell in the UFC Fight Night 86 main event on Sunday at Zagreb Arena in Zagreb, Croatia. Recent setbacks have motivated “Cigano” to train harder, as he brought in his original coach, Luiz Dorea, to help him prepare at American Top Team.

“The worst part was staying away from training for almost six months to recover from injuries,” dos Santos told Sherdog.com. “After I got back to training at 100 percent, I knew it was only a matter of time before I was in the best shape. The most important thing is that I keep the same motivation I had 10 years ago when I had my first MMA fight.”

Dorea provides familiarity and comfort.

“Nobody knows me better than Master Dorea,” dos Santos said. “With him by my side and the structure, trainers and sparring I have here, fans can expect to see the best ‘Cigano’ in Croatia. I never had anything easy in my life, so I’m used to getting past obstacles. The difficult moments just push me to train more and more.”

To understand the origins of his defiance, one must travel back to 1984 and the small city of Catanduvas in Southern Brazil, where dos Santos was born. The son of a mechanic and a maid, he was raised poor with three siblings -- two sisters and a brother. When he was 18, dos Santos decided it was time to build his own life in a bigger city, so he set out for Salvador with a group of friends in 2004.

“I just had money for the bus ticket, so when I got there, I had to work hard,” dos Santos said. “I washed dishes in a restaurant and sold ice cream on the beach.”

After four months in Salvador, dos Santos accepted an invitation from a friend to train jiu-jitsu at Yuri Carlton’s academy. In April 2005, he took his first jiu-jitsu class.

“I gave the most experienced guys a hard time, so Master Yuri invited me to MMA classes in the afternoon,” said dos Santos, who was given his “Cigano” moniker at the jiu-jitsu academy because of his long hair. “There was a famous soap opera at that time, where there was a gypsy who had long hair like me. One guy thought I looked similar to him and started calling me Cigano. My big mistake was showing I didn’t like it. That made the nickname really popular, and everybody started calling me Cigano.”

Dos Santos had been training for almost five months when Antonio Rogerio Nogueira arrived in Salvador to sharpen his ground game for an upcoming fight with Alistair Overeem.

“Cigano was a white belt, and I trained with him for 10 minutes and only tapped him once,” said Nogueira, who encouraged Carlton at the time to award dos Santos his blue belt. “I was really impressed by his strength and advised Yuri to take him to train his boxing with Luiz Dorea to get him ready for MMA.”

Before he started his boxing training, dos Santos made his MMA debut against famous capoeira master Jailson Silva Santos, aka “Mestre Coba Jai,” at a Demo Fight event on July 16, 2006. He had no striking technique of which to speak and accepted the bout one year and three months after he took his first jiu-jitsu class. Watching from the audience, Dorea, a former boxing trainer for the Brazilian National Team, was amazed by the strength of the then 22-year-old dos Santos, who knocked out “Mestre Coba Jai” with a soccer kick to the face less than three minutes into round one.

“I felt he was a special athlete,” Dorea said, “and after the fight, I immediately invited him to train boxing with me.”

Training daily with the Champion Team, the best boxing academy in Salvador, dos Santos discovered his real passion. “Minotoro,” Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Anderson Silva were always present.

“I liked jiu-jitsu a lot, but boxing is much more exciting,” dos Santos said. “After that, I started training boxing every day and I soon became much more confident standing than on the ground.”

Dorea fostered his development.

“Cigano has an amazing talent for boxing,” he said. “Besides learning very fast and being a very disciplined person, he’s able to absorb punches. The best boxers in Brazil are in Bahia, and most of them train with me. Training with the best, Cigano improved fast and won all the local competitions I entered him in.”

Dos Santos’ friendly disposition and powerful punch soon drew the attention of “Minotauro,” who brought him into his inner circle and allowed him to live at his training center in Rio de Janeiro.

“Thanks to the amazing support of the Nogueira brothers,” dos Santos said, “I started to spend two months in Rio and two months in Bahia.”

Training alongside the Nogueiras, Silva and Vitor Belfort, dos Santos began to evolve as a mixed martial artist and developed with same speed he showed in boxing and jiu-jitsu. In October 2008, he made his Ultimate Fighting Championship debut opposite Fabricio Werdum at UFC 90 in Chicago. Dos Santos was a relative unknown despite his 7-1 record. Days before the event, “Minotauro” made a stunning prediction: “Soon, you will see Junior ‘Cigano’ as the No. 1 heavyweight fighter in the world.”

Most assumed Nogueira was exaggerating in an attempt to boost his training partner’s profile. After all, Werdum entered the cage on the strength of back-to-back wins over Gabriel Gonzaga and Brandon Vera and had far more experience. However, dos Santos shocked the MMA world and knocked out Werdum in 1:20. The victory was part of an eight-fight winning streak that resulted in a title shot against Cain Velasquez on Nov. 12, 2011. Six years after he made his first contact with martial arts, dos Santos knocked out Velasquez to capture the most desired MMA championship in the world.

Dos Santos held the title for 13 months before losing a five-round decision to Velasquez in their UFC 155 rematch. The setback exposed the holes in the Brazilian’s game. However, dos Santos recovered from his first UFC defeat, returned to the Octagon three months later and knocked out 2001 K-1 World Grand Prix winner Mark Hunt with a spinning hook kick to secure his trilogy match with Velasquez. They met for the third time at UFC 166, where again the American Kickboxing Academy ace proved to be too much. Dos Santos resisted for 20-plus minutes but lost via fifth-round technical knockout.

Following his second loss to Velasquez, dos Santos decided it was time for a change and for the first time left Dorea’s side. He moved to Nova Uniao in Rio de Janeiro, where he trained for his UFC on Fox 13 main event with Stipe Miocic on Dec. 13, 2014. Dos Santos earned a five-round unanimous decision over the divisional upstart but did not escape the match unscathed. Afterward, he underwent knee and nose surgeries that kept him away from training for almost six months. During the respite, dos Santos elected to join American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida, where he could continue to improve on his weakest skill: wrestling.

“My boxing skills were obvious to my opponents,” he said. “You could see that against Velasquez and Miocic. I felt I needed to improve in all areas, and ATT was a great option for that. I’m working a lot with [former NCAA wrestling champion and 2008 Olympian] Steve Mocco, who makes me feel like a child every day. I’m also improving my boxing skills and working on my confidence with spinning back kicks.”

Fans who expected to see an improved dos Santos against Overeem at UFC on Fox 17 in December were disappointed, as the former Strikeforce champion knocked out the Brazilian in the second round. Now four months removed from the defeat, “Cigano” returns to face the surging Rothwell.

“He’s coming in off some great wins; actually, he could be fighting for the title,” dos Santos said. “I’m working hard to get an impressive win over him and get another title shot.”

Once he finishes business with Rothwell, dos Santos plans to turn his attention to UFC 198, where Werdum will defend the heavyweight championship against Miocic.

“Werdum has improved a lot, but I don’t think Miocic’s game is a good fit for him,” he said. “I bet it’s going to be a tough fight, but I see Miocic winning.”

While dos Santos owns victories over both Werdum and Miocic, he refused to say anything derogatory about champion or challenger. He prefers to take the high road.

“At the UFC ‘Unstoppable’ press conference, it was clear that everybody wanted to act like Chael Sonnen or Conor McGregor, taunting and screaming at one another,” dos Santos said. “That’s not natural. Actually, it looks ridiculous to me. McGregor and Sonnen are like that and it works for them, but most of us aren’t like that. I’m a fighter, not an actor. I would like to face the Werdum-Miocic winner because of how I did in my last fights against them, not because I said bad things about their family. That’s not my style. I’ll keep promoting the fights as I always did -- by respecting my opponents.”