Junior dos Santos has a little extra motivation heading into Saturday’s UFC 146 matchup with Frank Mir. At UFC 140, Mir fought dos Santos’ mentor and hero, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, and the fight ended in TKO and a broken arm for Nogueira.
Jeff Wagenheim of Sports Illustrated summed it up perfectly:
It was difficult to watch a man's arm get broken—difficult for those in the arena, for those watching the pay-per-view telecast and especially for a certain Brazilian fighter who considers Nogueira a mentor and hero. Junior dos Santos did not know at the time that he would have an opportunity to avenge his friend's painful loss.
When UFC 146 was conceived, Alistair Overeem was supposed to be fighting dos Santos, but he failed a drug test after a random screening March 27. Overeem was declared ineligible, and the stars aligned for an interesting type of grudge match.
Dos Santos and Mir have never fought before.
Dos Santos told TATAME that revenge wouldn’t be his driving force against Mir:
No, it doesn’t affect me. What I think about is successfully defending my belt and remain as the heavyweight champion. To do that, I need to be calm, focused and follow the game plan.
Mir said in a separate interview on The MMA Hour (via MMA Mania) that fighters have to be in the ring for themselves, not anybody else:
I'm sure he fights for his own reasons. I mean, if he says that to sell pay-per-views, I'm sure it might be thrown out there. But as far as deep down inside, when he's in the locker room getting ready to walk out to face me, when you're a fierce competitor like that, you don't really do it for outside sources. If you do it for any other reason other than what's inside you, the internal drive that you have to want to conquer this, it'll fall apart.
At the same time, Mir admitted that it would likely be in the back of dos Santos’ mind:
I think it will be a nice feather in his cap if he wins to say, 'Oh, I got one for my master,' type scenario. I do think it has to be a little nerve-racking that the guy you roll with as a coach got submitted by the guy you're about to face. That has to be a little bit in the back of your mind.
Both fighters are vastly underplaying this aspect of the matchup. Still, while Mir has remained somewhat civil in the build-up to this fight, dos Santos has blasted his opponent a couple times.
If he says revenge isn’t on his mind, he’s kidding himself.
In big fights, just as in big competitions in any sport, a little extra motivation goes a long way toward a result. In this case, dos Santos has that motivation.
It seems a little cliché to say that dos Santos is going to “win one for the Gipper” against Mir, but it wouldn’t be surprising. If it does happen, it will be interesting to see what dos Santos has to say about the revenge factor after the fight.
Maybe he’s been hiding something—albeit poorly—from anybody who asks about it.
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