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The positive test didn't come as a major surprise to the UFC Champ, who had heard rumblings of Overeem using performance enhancers for years and wasn't shocked to see him fail a test.
"It wasn't really a big surprise for me," he said in an interview with USA Today. "I don't know. I've heard lots of stories about people getting caught in drug tests. You hear through the grapevine that people use substances that are performance enhancing, so it wasn't a big surprise. That said, I don't use and I've never used any performance-enhancing substance whatsoever."
"Learning that my opponent had tested positive for (an elevated testosterone-to-)epitestosterone ratio - and because of that, there was a suspicion or a possibility that he may have been using something performance enhancing - was a little bit nerve-wracking, only because it meant to me that if I were to still fight him, I would be fighting somebody that may have been using performance-enhancing substances. So it was a tough phase not knowing a little while what was going to happen with that fight."
Dos Santos will now take on Frank Mir instead, a man who broke the arm of his mentor and trainer Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira last December. Still, dos Santos insists revenge isn't his motivation into this fight.
"His last fight and the way that he beat Minotauro, it doesn't really affect me. We're fighters. We're there to fight," dos Santos said. "Part of the beauty of our sport, part of the beauty of MMA, is that you never know how a fight is going to go. You never know how it's going to end. With that fight, Mir saw his chance and he took advantage of it. He did what a good fighter does."
"For us who know Minotauro, it was really sad to see that. It was sad for his Brazilian fans, especially for those of us who know him personally and are with him in training settings. It was sad for us to see him lose that way. But that has absolutely no bearing on my fight against Frank Mir."
Dos Santos has a lot of respect for Mir's game, and talked up the style he'll face at UFC 146 on May 26.
"Frank Mir sets himself apart," dos Santos admitted. "He is a very explosive fighter. When he attacks, he attacks to submit. He's not somebody that you can play around with. He's a guy that you have to take extremely serious all the time. He's extremely dangerous in his submissions. I'm preparing to face him in that way, to just take this fight extremely seriously, knowing how dangerous he is on the ground.
"Frank Mir is very deliberate," dos Santos continued. "He's excellent technically. What I mean when I say explosive is, he is extremely fast to explode into a position and to exploit a weakness. When he sees an opening or a weakness in somebody's position, he can explode right into the position he needs to be in to get into leglocks, the armlocks and the americana (armlock)."
"Sometimes you see Mir and he looks a little bit tired or he looks a little bit worn down, and it's almost like he's doing that to take you off guard, so that you let your guard down, and as soon as you show him that one weakness in that position, Frank Mir can just explode into where he needs to be to exploit that."
The Champ still feels he's got an edge in all aspects of the game, and fully expects to be able to deal with the threats presented by Mir come their title fight later this month. If he can do that, he'll remain the UFC Heavyweight Champion come May 27.
Penick's Analysis: Dos Santos is a smart and opinionated Champ, and he's usually good for some very good commentary on whatever's on his mind, with this most recent interview as more evidence of that. He's got a tough test ahead of him with Mir, regardless of how much of a favorite most will see him as, and he realizes the dangers present in this fight. Still, he's not too worried about what Mir brings, because it's a style he feels he knows how to contend with as well. It's going to be an great fight come May 26, and dos Santos is ready for it.
[Junior dos Santos art by Grant Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_13251.shtml
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