Miocic to defend belt vs. Dos Santos at UFC 211

Junior dos Santos will get a third chance to regain the heavyweight strap when he takes on Stipe Miocic at UFC 211.

Published on Thursday, 2/9/17, at 4:05 p.m. Eastern.

Stipe Miocic will defend his heavyweight title in a rematch with Junior dos Santos in the UFC 211 headliner on May 13 at American Airlines Arena in Dallas. Miocic lost a controversial unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 49-46) to Dos Santos at UFC on FOX 13 in Phoenix on Dec. 13 of 2014.

Miocic hasn’t taste defeat since then. He’s won four consecutive fights by knockout, including three straight first-round KOs.

Miocic earned a title shot by scoring a 54-second KO of Andrei Arlovski at UFC 195. Then at UFC 198, Miocic went down to Brazil and took the belt from Fabricio Werdum by first-round KO.

In his only title defense to date in his hometown of Cleveland last September at UFC 203, Miocic defeated Alistair Overeem by first-round KO.

Dos Santos won his first seven UFC fights to earn a title shot against Cain Velasquez at UFC on FOX 1. ‘Cigano’ needed merely 64 seconds to KO Velasquez on Nov. 12 of 2011. JDS defended his strap once by beating Frank Mir by second-round KO at UFC 146.

However, in the rematch against Velasquez at UFC 155, Cain dominated Dos Santos from start to finish in a brutal beatdown. After JDS bounced back with a third-round KO win over Mark Hunt by spinning hook kick, he was given another shot at Velasquez.

Nothing changed from the second encounter, though. Velasquez dealt out a similar beating in violent fashion and finished the job with a fifth-round KO.

JDS took 14 months off after that loss and returned to pick up the win over Miocic. He took plenty of punishment from Miocic, however, and didn’t return to the Octagon for more than a year again. Then at UFC Orlando in December of 2015. Overeem scored a second-round KO of Dos Santos.

In his last outing, JDS bounced back with one of his best performances in years. He routed Ben Rothwell, who had won four fights in a row, by UD last April.

5Dimes opened Miocic as a -245 favorite yesterday. Since then, the number has dropped down to -215. Dos Santos is a +165 underdog (risk $100 to win $165). The total is 1.5 rounds (‘over’ -190, ‘under’ +150).

Several other upcoming fights have recently been given odds. They are listed below…

UFC Fight Night 105

Derrick Lewis -125 vs. Travis Browne +105
Hector Lombard -150 vs. Johny Hendricks +130

UFC 209

Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson -130 vs. Tyron Woodley +110
Khabib Nurmagomedov -190 vs. Tony Ferguson +165
Alistair Overeem -135 vs. Mark Hunt +115

UFC Fight Night 106

Kelvin Gastelum -350 vs. Vitor Belfort +260
Edson Barboza -175 vs. Beneil Dariush +145

UFC 210

Daniel Cormier -115 vs. Anthony Johnson -105
Gegard Mousasi -125 vs. Chris Weidman +105

TBD bout for 135-pound belt

Cody Garbrandt -160 vs. T.J. Dillashaw +120

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