During the first two years of his MMA career, Cain Velasquez had two fights. According to his coach, Javier Mendez, that wasn’t by choice. Mendez said that they had a hard time finding opponents willing to match up against Velasquez, who had been an All-American wrestler at Arizona State University.
That inability to find opponents on the local scene led to Velasquez signing with the UFC with limited experience. He made an immediate impact with the promotion. In his first five fights with the UFC, Velasquez went 5-0 with four knockouts. For his sixth fight with the promotion, Velasquez was matched up against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, the former PRIDE heavyweight champion, who had recently lost the interim UFC heavyweight title to Frank Mir. Nogueira was a slight favorite when the two stepped into the cage in the main event of UFC 110, which took place at Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia.
Velasquez extended his winning streak when he knocked out Nogueira at the 2:20 mark of the first round. The stoppage earned Velasquez his second “Knockout of the Night” award. The victory also earned Velasquez a shot at the UFC heavyweight title.
Velasquez captured that belt in his next outing when he used his striking skills to score a first-round knockout of Brock Lesnar at UFC 121.
Velasquez faces Francis Ngannou in the main event of tonight’s UFC on ESPN 1 fight card, which takes place at Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. Before that fight takes place, relive Velasquez’s win over Nogueira right here.
