Rise of Dos Santos No Surprise for ‘Minotauro’

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Junior dos Santos has entered the Octagon six times, and six times, he has left its confines victorious. His rapid ascent has come as a surprise to some but not to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. He saw the potential for greatness in Dos Santos at the earliest stages of his development.

“Dos Santos wanted to succeed in the sport,” Nogueira told Sherdog.com. “I remember his wife, who’s an architect, went to my uncle, and they called me to say they had a kid who wanted to test himself. I was training on the ground with him and told Yuri [Carlton] to ‘train the boy a bit more’ because he wasn’t ready. The guy trained for more than a year and a half before Yuri sent him back to me and asked me how he looked. I told him he was good now.”

Dos Santos has finished five of his six opponents -- two-time Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling World Championships gold medalist Fabricio Werdum and 2006 Pride Fighting Championships open weight grand prix winner Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic among them -- since he made his unheralded debut in the UFC nearly three years ago.

At 26, Dos Santos has developed quickly. According to Nogueira, the tools were always there.

“He had great determination and came to Rio de Janeiro alone,” he said. “He had yet to evolve, but we could see he had the coordination and capacity to improve. I remember Dos Santos at the beginning of his training and then against Werdum [at UFC 90]. At first, he was a fighter. After he spent three months with us, he was a different guy.

“In three months, he showed great evolution with his training,” Nogueira added. “Nobody took him to the ground. He gained great confidence, and we said at that point that it was going to be impossible to defeat him. Nobody else could take him to the ground, which is why I didn’t think Werdum would be able to. That’s exactly what happened.”

Now, the stakes are much higher for Dos Santos. Pegged to coach opposite Brock Lesnar on Season 13 of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, he will collide with former interim heavyweight champion Shane Carwin in the UFC 131 headliner on June 11 at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Carwin replaced Lesnar at the event after the one-time World Wrestling Entertainment superstar came down with diverticulitis for a second time. The intestinal disorder nearly ended Lesnar’s career in late 2009. The Dos Santos-Carwin winner will become the top contender to the throne of reigning UFC heavyweight king Cain Velasquez.

Dos Santos’ few remaining detractors still point to what they perceive as an unproven ground game. Nogueira cautioned against such doubts.

“He’s greatly improved his ground game,” the former Pride titleholder said. “That made him even more confident, as he had a little trepidation before. The same thing happened with [UFC middleweight champion] Anderson Silva. In other words, they wanted to strike because they were afraid of being brought to the ground.

“Now, Dos Santos is confident,” Nogueira continued. “If a guy tries to take him down, he’ll have the ground techniques or he’ll know how to secure the guy with his wrestling and not get taken down.”

Determination carried Dos Santos during the trying times, which included his only career defeat -- a November 2007 submission to Joaquim Ferreira.

“It was his dedication,” Nogueira said. “He was working on something else and dropped everything to fight. His wife helped out, and he went to the academies. He was always trying to evolve. People wonder if he was luck. No, he searched out his training and positioned himself well. He’s a guy who struggled to get where he is. Things didn’t happen by chance.”