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Remember the context here -- Liverpool’s Terry Etim had rattled off five victories in his previous six fights, and his bout with Edson Barboza looked like a catapult into the top 10 of the lightweight division.

But a funny thing happened in Rio at UFC 142.

Midway through the third round of an otherwise well-contested fight, the Brazilian Barboza stood at the center of the Octagon and eyed an advancing Etim, who had his hands up at his chin in defense. Right when Etim trespassed inside the inner-Octagon line, Barboza planted his right leg, spun like a dervish 360 degrees and used his left leg as an Apache blade.

Boom!

As the unthinkable, out-of-the blue spinning wheel kick landed, Etim dropped backward as if he'd been shot, and referee Dan Miragliotta swooped in to signal the copters. Everybody else rubbed their eyes and wondered if they’d just seen what they thought they’d just seen.

Though it happened just two weeks into 2012, a week before Barboza would turn 26 years old, that spectacular knockout always looked like the KO of the year. Even in slow motion, the propulsion and composure of Barboza's kick barely registers -- you just don’t see perfect execution of that kind of thing very often.

Know what was even more impressive? Barboza's demeanor afterward.

He saw Etim drop to the canvas, stiff as a mannequin en route and clearly done, and calmly walked to his corner as if he'd just done the most pedestrian thing imaginable.

Bravo, Edson Barboza. Bravo.

Junior dos Santos says he became too obsessed with defending the takedown in his failed UFC heavyweight title defense against Cain Velasquez. More »

The year 2012 was supposed to be a christening in MMA.

The UFC was in the first year of a long-coveted broadcast deal, which meant something like the first (big) step toward something like (actual) legitimization. Smaller fighter molds were created to ensure Octagon hijinks (those flyweights). Chael Sonnen was going to be dropped into Brazil and left to stand trial for his actions against Anderson Silva (this was Ali-Frazier in Manila, remember?). The real Brandon Vera was still just around the corner coming back.

It was a year of tough luck.

Alistair Overeem put epitestosterone into the collective consciousness, and Nick Diaz did the same for metabolytes. (And we thought we'd seen it all with Thiago Silva's inhuman urine.) Jose Aldo rode motorcycles. Cristiane Santos, Stephan Bonnar and Muhammed Lawal taught us the important differences between drostanolone and stanozolol. The cage too often became a lab experiment (or the experiments were too often caught).

And then there were injuries and venue problems and wild tales and the prolonged demise of Strikeforce. Cards were put together with hopes and whims and good intentions, but rarely resembled the original draft come fight night. UFC 147 was going to be historic. Instead, a footnote. UFC 149 perhaps scared Calgary from MMA all together. UFC 151 became as mysterious as Area 51 -- it just disappeared (and Greg Jackson became a person of interest in the attempted murder of the sport).

In 2012 there was Jon Jones and his smashed Bentley. There was Dominick Cruz and his ACL and all the information you could ever want about rejected cadaver tendons. There was Georges St-Pierre, who fought once. Interim titles were made and stored in closets and never defended. For Dan Henderson, there was no 2012. There was only Sokoudjou.

But you know what? For all the ills of 2012, there's a reason that die-hard fans are so protective of their niche sport. It perseveres, and will bounce back, and in fact is as strong as ever. After a tumultuous year, it's good to look back at the reasons we love it.

Here are 50 such reasons, in no real order:

50. Because all talk leads to a fight: You know what's not satisfying? A lot of smack talk that goes unresolved. That's where ball and puck sports come up short. In MMA everything's leading to the flagpole. It's the ultimate ultimate. There are times that are so meta in MMA as to boggle the spectator's mind. You know the moments. Where somebody talks a bunch of rot and gets in another guy's face and for a brief moment the worry is that a fight will break out. Then it re-dawns on you -- a fight will break out. That's the point of it all. No need to subdue a thing. Hype has never had such an easy time coexisting with a sport.

49. Matt Brown: Matt Brown, yo.

48. They show up: Fighters are usually masochists. Matt Wiman has said that he gets so nervous before a fight, he'll envision a friend pulling up at the back door in a getaway car to whisk him away. St-Pierre has similar nerves before a fight. Vera usually pukes. They happily put themselves in these situations. They arrive at that moment, after weight cuts and media and training and travel and diets, and they have to ignore the ludicrous nature of the thing (that they are going out, essentially, to be punched in the face for public amusement) in order to put one foot in front of the other toward the cage. And they do. They show up. They go through with it. Fighters beat the notion of cowardice back for all of us.

47. The bro culture: There are more "bros" per capita in MMA than all other sports combined. You know bros. The loud T-shirts with sadistic clowns or skulls or daggers. The red Mohawks, the untold piercings, the shaved domes and hats with wide flat brims and energy drinks. Oh, and …

46. Tattoos: Scott Jorgensen might well have been modeled after Ron Athey. Ian Loveland has a rainbow trout on his back that would tempt any sportsman into flicking a caddis fly at it. Alan Belcher has the abomination of Johnny Cash. Brock Lesnar? The sworded thorax. There is more ink in a cage at any given moment than at most print presses. In fact, the odd fighter who isn't tattooed stands out conspicuously as a blank canvas (looking at you, Matt Hughes).

45. Dan Henderson: He'll fight anybody, at any weight. That's old school. Henderson can't out-talk anybody, yet he has that loud "H-Bomb" that doubles as a mute button. You ever seen Henderson without his teeth? He’s a throwback to the bare-knucklers who went 50 rounds.

44. Fists aren't metaphors: They are the enforcement of a man's literal will. A football player works in concert with 10 other players. A fighter works in concert with his own body and mind, his instincts and the profound knowledge of his own limitations. There's not a purer, more harrowing exercise in getting to the bottom of your net worth.

43. They latch the gate: In the early days they wanted a moat, with live alligators circling in craven hunger. In retrospect, that's hammy (and a nightmare for the UFC's traveling production crew). But it's still a cage, and have you ever seen Bruce Buffer hustle himself out of there after the introductions? He scoots like a man getting out of harm's way. They lock two people in, and, make no mistake, it's meant to simulate those grim do-or-die games of Rome. (If "simulate" isn't too trivial a word).

42. Human origami: Demian Maia loves himself some floor. And jiu-jitsu is big. There's Jake Shields' American variety, Eddie Bravo's interstellar concepts (which are aided by gymnast flexibility), all the way down to Cody McKenzie's gangly limbs slithering around the necks of opponents like vines alive.

41. It gives voice to writers: This thing is new, and as a fringe sport it opens up an opportunity for writers. But the game itself, and the idea, is old. Conflict is a tireless muse.

40. Because of human error: Bad scorecards are a dime a dozen, and Steve Mazzagatti has become the Steve Mazzagatti of referees. You know what, though? It’s human. Judges are interpreting a fight. Referees are tending rules and safety as arbiters. They get things wrong. You know what's cold, ruthless and boring, though? Perfect. That's what. Flaws are part of the game's character. And judges mean …

39. It's a trial: Take sentencing into your own hands, cautions Dana White. Don't leave it to the judge's scorecards. Don't wait on third-party verdicts. But it's beyond that; every time a fighter steps in that cage it's a trial. His future is always 100 percent in the hands of his present, and therefore his past has little bearing on things, either (just look at Jamie Varner). This sport has a big sense of right now (and cornermen have struggled to convey that bit of gravity throughout the ages).

38. Ronda Rousey: There was a brief second in the Miesha Tate fight, just as Tate's arm was torqueing the wrong way, that somebody in the Ohio crowd yelled "take that arm home!" This is acceptable. Rousey has a (figurative) collection of such souvenirs, and it's one of the reasons she's the game's fastest-rising star.

37. Because PC doesn't get free admission: Part of the culture of MMA thrives because it's not politically correct. In fact, it’s the anti-PC. White is a big reason for that. He sticks his foot in his mouth plenty, but he doesn't issue apologies. He calls it like it is. In that way, he's right down on the ground level with the demographic. He has a secret handshake, so to speak, with his fan boys. With all the PC nature of other sports, this can feel like being pulled back on a bowstring and then let go. Which is to say it's refreshing.

36. Bruce Buffer: The silvery in-cage playboy will do a phone message of his famous "It's Time" for a fee. He also does weddings.

35. Every fight is the playoffs: There are no seasons in MMA. Every fight is, theoretically, make or break. Every fight could be, very realistically, the last. Each fighter controls his own destiny. The possibility of injury is always great. The possibility of "losing your edge," is also great. (Just look at Jonathan Brookins).

34. Gladiators: Remember when Chris Leben had just fought Michael Bisping in England and he was all purple and bloody and beat up, and he grabbed the microphone from Joe Rogan and yelled, "Are you not entertained?" Ha. That was cool. Why yes, "Crippler," we are.

33. Hope: If you're not afraid of losing, particularly vicariously, you're allowed to get your hopes up. So many people are fair-weather fans in other sports because they don't like the formality of losing. In MMA, fair-weather fans are rare. People deal in raw emotion because they like jangling their own raw nerves.

32. Degrees of separation: A.J. Liebling traced the history of boxing to himself via a series of punches in his book "The Sweet Science." It's less dramatic, but this can be done in MMA, too. For instance, Jorge Rivera once punched me (without total malice), and Rivera was punched by the great Anderson Silva. Silva was nicked by Dan Henderson, who was punched by Allan Goes, who was punched by Frank Shamrock. Frank was punched by his brother Ken Shamrock, who has been punched by Royce Gracie. Royce by Helio, Helio by Carlos and Carlos by Otavio Mitsuyo Maeda and Maeda from the godfather of judo himself, Kano Jigoro. We are connected by a series of punches.

31. Bellator tournaments: You hate them. But you love them. You know? Attrition is a love/hate concept.

30. The Diaz Brothers: What can you say? The brothers of "Stalkton" are a breed unto themselves. One time I asked Nate Diaz how his older brother Nick Diaz was as a cornerman. He recalled some different mentoring tips that Nick had passed down, and reached into his grab bag of experience to provide me examples, one of which was, "Don’t get no girl pregnant." Quintessential Diaz. In fact, we now have a word for such raw 209 parables -- we call them "Diazisms." And they fight. A forward-moving, flow-striking, patter-to-power style that is at turns boxing, brawling and hood.

29. The sordid past: The cage is a canvas of past brutality. The sport was originally called No Holds Barred, a Mesozoic era when fish-hooking and head-butting were cool. Don Frye roamed those lands. There were artifacts. Teila Tuli’s tooth was extracted from press row, traced back they think to a Gerard Gordeau kick. The sport has cleaned up over the years, has been sanctioned, is legal in most states and is as safe as anything under the banner of "Ultimate Fighting Championship" can be.

28. Yet, there's lunacy: New Yorkers have to travel to New Jersey to watch MMA. Taken piecemeal, all the disciplines are legal in New York -- boxing, wrestling, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, judo. Put together as a stew, it becomes a culinary mess.

27. Infiltration: It may not be "mainstream" in the mainstream sense, but we all remember Joe Lozito, who used his MMA knowledge to stop a killer on the subway. MMA is everywhere. Anthony Bourdain knows. He's seen his wife, Ottavia, come home from Renzo Gracie's with bruises that look like eggplant tattoos. He says she sometimes will be giving him a sweet look, or what he mistakes as a sweet look, before realizing she is looking at him as a perfect dummy for an omoplata.

26. Omoplatas: And speaking of omoplatas, the cousin of the high-minded gogo, they never work. Yet how excited they make Joe Rogan when they are attempted in the cage. And how often they lead to more practical submissions (or escapes). Omoplatas are the white whale of subs. Somewhere right now a crazed jitz practitioner is dreaming of being the guy who ushers in the Viable Omoplata Era.

25. Four-ounce gloves: Let's get one thing straight here: The gloves are meant to protect the knuckle more than they are the cheekbone. Got it? Alright. Proceed.

24. Cauliflower ears: You know what the vegetation on a man's ears is? A biography. It means ruthless gnashing, that he's a grinder, and is so crazy and futureless that he couldn't be bothered to use headgear. Fighters are vain about these ears, even if the outward appearance of chewed-up Randy Couture ears is an offense to our concept of vanity.

23. Dana F. White: MMA wouldn't be where it is without the world's greatest circus barker. Deal with it. At the end of the day, it is what it is.

22. Because the fight game is innate: Joyce Carol Oates, one of the unlikely historians of boxing, once wrote about the taboo of fighting in a society with "pretensions of humanitarianism." This is especially true of MMA. At root, what we suspect is that most people can't take their eyes off a fight -- that if we can get past that false coat of civility, well, then we get to something more toward the truth about our interests. MMA fans suspect detractors are really just in denial (and that's a fun secret).

21. Jeremy Horn: This person exists.

20. Brotherhood: Fighters may despise one another, they may rake each other over the coals in the media for eight straight weeks, but there is a solidarity at the end of it all. There is a handshake; sometimes a hug. What is the communication? That they went to war, in a sport they both are fraternity brothers in.

19. Sport, but not a game: St-Pierre has said that MMA is a sport, but it's not a game. This is true. Games carry an air of the frivolous, of friendly competition. A fight is real. In fact, it's as real as it gets. They have smelling salts cageside. And they use those smelling salts a lot.

18. Walkouts: When Dan Henderson walked out to Red Rider's "Lunatic Fringe" in Columbus at UFC 82, it was goose flesh. The old wrestler giving the nod to his wrestling roots, about to fight the single scariest man on the planet, with Heath Sims and Darrell Gholar pumping their fists behind him in convoy. That was awesome. (Note: Hendo was choked out a short time later).

17. Duke Roufus: Anthony Pettis is Duke Roufus’ real life comic book action hero. Think Roufus drew up that little fence-walking ricochet kick that will haunt Benson Henderson forever? Probably. His favorite movie is "Ong Bak," and he wants to get the essential Ong Bak out of his fighters.

16. Burt Watson: They call him the "babysitter of the stars," and that's true. But Watson is the "spirit of the thing." If you listen closely, toward the light coming out of the tunnel, you'll hear him. The UFC site coordinator's voice emanates not just from the bowels of the arena, but down the ages of the fight game (he used to work with Joe Frazier). "Let’s roll to the hole, baby," he screams. And sometimes he just screams. Long after many of these UFC fighters come and go, Watson's voice will still be echoing down the corridors.

15. No standing eight count: And thank goodness.

14. The matchmakers: Sean Shelby and Joe Silva get to play god. We love to praise them when they make the fight we want -- or the fight we didn't know we wanted (such as any Cub Swanson fight) -- just as we like to call them crazy. But they do a consistently great job of handling the spectrum. They want to book the guy who can beat the champion. They want to match heads of momentum. They match tailspins with tailspins. And sometimes they throw darts at pictures on a wall to determine who's next for whom (or at least so we imagine).

13. Flyweights: If you don't like the idea of two 125-pound fighters flying around like electrons, then you don't like verbs. These are action men.

12. Greg Jackson: Remember when Jackson once said, "When you look at the dark side, careful you must be ... for the dark side looks back." What? That was Yoda? Thought that was Jackson.

11. Style versus style: You have a Jeet Kune Do master who just front kicked a jiu-jitsu player into oblivion, right after beating a big counterpunching boxer with a spinning backfist? Great. Ben Askren is still at the end of it, in his singlet, waiting to grind all your martial arts into a fine powder.

10. Mike Dolce: He is the modern day Alberto Giacometti. Did you see what he did with Thiago Alves? Plus, the war on Teflon is only beginning to heat up.

9. It's a circus: When you see Yves Lavigne, Reed Harris, Herb Dean, Stitch, Brittany Palmer, Joe Silva and Urijah Faber -- always Urijah Faber -- posing for pictures up and down the aisles of your town's sports facility, you know the circus is in town.

8. Las Vegas: It's not unreasonable to imagine the UFC brass at the headquarters in Las Vegas sitting around a table like the Justice League. (Legion of Doom?) The UFC is a show, a roll of the dice, a skill game, a spectacle, a night activity. It is hubbed right where it should be.

7. The others: Ray Sefo's World Series of Fighting is cool, so is Bellator and OneFC, King of the Cage and RUFF. You know why they're cool? Because they exist. There are multiple platforms to be a professional mixed martial artist. Invicta might be the coolest story of 2012.

6. Art of eight limbs: MMA is in love with eights. There are eight sides to the patented UFC Octagon, and eight limbs in Muay Thai. UFC 8 played up the classic motif of "David versus Goliath," and UFC 88 effectively signaled the end for Chuck Liddell. When Dan Henderson decisioned Carlos Newton at UFC 17, Rory MacDonald was 8 years old. Eights are wild!

5. Polyglot: MMA is a true melting pot. There are fighters from America, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Korea, Brazil, England, Ireland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Russia, the state of Montana and Cuba (Hector Lombard).

4. Violence as aesthetics: Upon catching his first good look at Anderson Silva, Joe Rogan coined the "ballet of violence" thing. This makes sense to me. It doesn't take a nuanced eye to see the grace within the maelstrom of a fight. Set Edson Barboza's spinning wheel kick on Terry Etim at half speed to "Bolero" and tell me I'm lying.

3. The "Puncher's Chance": In every fight, no matter how much the odds stack against one man in favor of another, there is one great equalizer: the black spot. There's a place, on the side of the chin, that if touched just right, shuts the whole program down. Any man can be knocked out. When promoters are selling a mismatch, they are selling the optimism in the form of a "puncher's chance."

2. Traditions are being constructed: While boxing's history is long and rich and storied, MMA's is still in its infancy. If you're in MMA right now, you are a part of its scaffolding. There are a million firsts still out there for the taking.

1. Barefoot: Mike Tyson used to keep things as primitive by not wearing socks; in MMA they don't wear shoes. In this way it's not only animalistic, it's everybody's worst nightmare -- to appear in public, in a trial-like atmosphere, wearing only underwear.

LAS VEGAS -- When the first fight between challenger Junior dos Santos and UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez was made in November 2011, the question was simple: Could dos Santos keep the fight standing?

Knowing what they knew about Velasquez at the time, a lot of people were skeptical that he could.

When they met at the rematch at UFC 155 on Saturday night, 13 months after the belt changed hands, the question became: Could Velasquez get the fight to the ground?

In each case, the challenger carried the burden of answering the question. And in each case, the answer was something not altogether expected.

Velasquez recaptured his heavyweight belt with a one-sided, unanimous decision over Dos Santos (50-45, 50-44, 50-43). Not only did the fight last the entire five rounds -- something that Dana White said he'd have wagered big sums of money against never happening -- Velasquez consistently beat dos Santos on the feet. And he took dos Santos down. And he dominated all phases.

In the world of black and white imagination, this wasn't the fight people expected. Wasn't Velasquez's best chance to take the fight to the floor and work his ground and pound? The thinking was he didn't want to stand and trade with dos Santos, a superior boxer with heavy hands who needed a shade over a minute to knock out Velasquez the first time.

What a difference 13 months and 64 seconds makes.

"A lot of people are always [saying] 'take him down, take him down' -- but it's not like that," Velasquez told ESPN.com after the fight. "If your opponent knows you're going to take him down off the bat, then of course he's going to defend it. But if you throw stuff up top, throw punches, and then go for the takedown? It's a set-up. It makes it so much easier for you.

"So, with him knowing that I wanted to take him down and then throwing stuff up top, it threw him off."

Velasquez crashed home a big overhand right that dropped dos Santos midway through the opening round. From that moment on dos Santos was in survival mode, similar to the position Brock Lesnar found himself in against Shane Carwin at UFC 116.

Only in this fight, dos Santos never truly recovered. He took a beating -- even through chants of "Cigano" by the Brazilian faithful who were on hand hoping to see him tie the UFC heavyweight record with a second title defense, and even in the first round when he was fresh.

White said afterwards that he thought dos Santos, who demonstrated his heart and mettle in defeat, might have broken his jaw in the second round.

But that first big right hand changed the course of the fight.

"It was hard, you know, I know I hit him with a good shot," Velasquez said. "He went down. It was hard. I really wanted to keep a lot of weight on him and keep him down, but also throw a lot of power in my punches. And I couldn't get the amount of power that I wanted to knock him out on the ground, so I tried to be smart. When he recovered I slowed down a little bit."

Now Velasquez has regained his title, and it looks like his first title defense could come in a marquee matchup against Alistair Overeem. That is, if Overeem gets by Antonio Silva in February.

"We'll see what happens," White said when pressed on Overeem as the next challenger. Velasquez called it a "great opportunity" when asked about it himself.

But to be fair, the new (old) heavyweight champ was still putting all the pieces back together on having become a redemption story.

"I keep going in and out of what I just did, and I'm not really believing at this moment," Velasquez said. "That's it, man, just a lot hard work to get back to this point."

And as for the rocky road it took to return to glory?

"Knowing what I can do and knowing that I didn't do it in the first fight, and it being a doubt in so many people's minds, and me hearing it over a whole year or so ... all it comes down to is doing the hard work in the gym and translating that in the Octagon."

How's that for a stand-up reaction to a year's worth of doubt?

Three minutes into their heavyweight title rematch and it was clear that the initial meeting was an anomaly.

Cain Velasquez pressured Junior dos Santos with takedowns and hard punches. His assault was relentless -- so much so that dos Santos looked like a beaten fighter minutes into the second round. His right eye was nearly shut, his lips puffy. But it was the look of dejection on his face that best told the story -- the man beating him up was a familiar face, but that’s as far as it went.

The foe dos Santos clashed with on Saturday at UFC 155 was fully healthy, and that made all the difference.

Dos Santos took the heavyweight title from Velasquez with a first-round knockout on Nov. 12, 2011. But Velasquez reluctantly revealed afterward that he fought with an injured knee and other ailments that night.

He wasn’t slowed by a bum knee or anything else during the rematch.

“Not being able to work stuff in the gym, it translates into the Octagon,” Velasquez said after improving to 11-1. “And that [injury] did. It really got into my head that I can’t do the stuff I want. If I can’t do the things I want to do in the gym, how am I going to do them [in the Octagon]?

“Being 100 percent physically and mentally, it helps so much.”

Now dos Santos is left to explain why he was overwhelmed for five rounds en route to losing his title.

Velasquez wasn’t just a fighter reclaiming his crown; he was a man determined to reestablish his dominance in the heavyweight division.

He is indeed the baddest man on this planet. Dos Santos knocked him out the first time they fought, but Velasquez delivered the more impressive beating the second time around.

“

I prepared well for him. We didn't let him get comfortable in there.

” -- Cain Velasquez, on pushing the pace against Junior dos Santos

“I was envisioning this fight in my head. I just wanted to keep the pace and eventually slow him down,” Velasquez said. “I prepared well for him. We didn’t let him get comfortable in there.”

Despite being pummeled for five rounds, dos Santos (15-2) never stopped trying to win. He showed the heart of a champion and even delivered a few uppercuts in the final round.

Fans, however, booed dos Santos after the fight -- unfair to him, and he was left to wonder why they responded to him in such an unfavorable manner.

“Why are they doing that? Why?” dos Santos said. “He was better than me. He walked forward all the time ... his takedowns, his grappling game, it's very effective.

“Congratulations to him.”

When all was said and done, he needed much more than heart to defeat a healthy Velasquez.

LAS VEGAS -- It's been a long 2012 for Jim Miller, who lost to Nate Diaz in May and was resolved to the idea that he would have to wait to fight again until 2013.

But as has been the case all year with the UFC, one man's misfortune becomes another man's opportunity. Gray Maynard, who was expected to fight Joe Lauzon at UFC 155, had to drop out with a knee injury. Enter Miller, who'd been in a holding pattern since Cinco de Mayo.

That's a long time to contemplate tapping for the first time in a seven-year career to a guillotine choke.

Must have been a difficult seven months, right?

"For me it's actually pretty easy," Miller told ESPN.com. "I know what I'm capable of. I know that I could have beat either of those guys that beat me on that night had things gone my way. I've had to deal with other things in the past that were out of my control, and you gain a sense of maturity with that, and I know when that door closes it's just me and my opponent. A lot can go right, and a lot can go wrong. I'm just looking to fight to my abilities."

It's not like Miller's recent skid was against slouches, either. He lost a title eliminator to eventual champion Benson Henderson while suffering from a kidney infection and mononucleosis. That decision snapped a seven-fight winning streak. His loss to Diaz in a big headlining spot stung, but sandwiched in between was a submission victory over Melvin Guillard.

In other words, a fairly normal stretch by any other fighter's standards is a novel experience for Miller. Losing isn't something he's used to (his only other losses in seven years are to Frankie Edgar and Maynard). And then again, neither is waiting around.

Maybe that's why Miller says he's "fired up and giddy" heading into Saturday's bout with Lauzon. Being giddy is something you don't loosely associate with a blue-collar grinder like New Jersey's Miller. But the prospect of facing Lauzon, who takes home more end-of-the-night bonus money than everybody not named Anderson Silva, is a fun temptation.

"[Lauzon's] a very aggressive fighter, and he comes forward," Miller said. "He's obviously very dangerous with his strikes, and he hits hard. So [for me] it's just fight clean, and not give him those opportunities to do what he excels at. I'm good in the scrambles myself. It's kind of just not getting going too much where he might pull out and advantage, but do what I am good at doing, and just take the fight to him. He's very aggressive, and he's always attacking. I try to do the same things when the fight hits the mat."

As for Lauzon's ability to capitalize on mistakes?

"It's different than most guys because most guys have that little voice that says 'I might end up in a bad spot.' But [Lauzon] really doesn't care about that, because he's going to string another sub off of it," Miller said. "So it's difficult, and you've got to be careful, and if you're worried about a triangle the next thing you know you're in an armbar type of deal, and also every time you attack you leave yourself open for counters and passes and that kind of stuff. I just got to be sharp, let it all go and have some fun in there."

The "fun" Miller's forecasting extends to his coach, Mike Constantino, who can't help noticing the similarities in the styles.

"Lauzon likes to set things up with speed and accuracy from the scramble -- but I constantly instill the guys with scramble ability, and winning the scramble. And as you know with Jim's fights, he's a scrambler-based, too," Constantino said. "I just think this thing's going to be like a dust-up -- like a cartoon -- all over the cage.

"I agree with what Joe has been saying, that the first one to make a mistake will obviously lose, but somebody might graze somebody with a strike to set up the submission and that could be the difference in the fight."

So a frenetically paced fight that will be contested on virtual eggshells, with the first one to make a mistake losing? For a competitor like Miller, the opportunity was too good to pass up, and giddiness comes with the territory.

Facts exist that make the upcoming statement sort of ridiculous. Nonetheless, this is the prevailing feeling as Junior dos Santos readies himself to fight Cain Velasquez on Saturday night.

Even though the heavyweights headlined UFC's debut on Fox 13 months ago; even though dos Santos snapped a punch off Velasquez's temple in 64 seconds and returned to Brazil as the newly minted UFC champion; even though Velasquez felt the sting of defeat for the first time in his career; even though their lives over the past year were molded out of what happened in Anaheim, Calif. ... the final UFC main event of
2012 doesn't claim the usual characteristics of a rematch.

This, of course, is mildly interesting for dos Santos (15-1), who at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds owns all the hallmarks of greatness.

"I don't think I'm wrong, man. It is a rematch for him," the current champion, vying for his second title defense, said with a smile Thursday.

Well, yes, it is. They signed bout agreements last year. They made weight. They showed up to the Octagon. There was a winner and a loser.

All of those are facts, preserved in HD and fight-result databases.

But here's the thing: No more than a month before the fight, Velasquez shredded an ACL. There's video floating around the Internet, which the former champion did not wish to be released, that shows him writhing around on the mat after the accident. (The videographer, Bobby Razak, said it happened two weeks to 10 days before the bout. Velasquez's trainer, Javier Mendez, pinpointed it closer to a month.) His camp hoped for the best -- hey, maybe this ACL thing won't matter! -- but Kinesiology is a scientific study for a reason. It did matter, and by the time fight week rolled around Velasquez still couldn't plant and kick properly, or fire off takedowns, or move so well from side to side.

And dos Santos, it turns out, wasn't 100 percent that night either.

So there's all this junk that wishful thinking perhaps got in the way of a fight that should have been a great heavyweight war between two top mixed martial artists in their prime. This is why, despite what happened in Anaheim, this weekend's year-end headliner at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas might feel more like a mulligan than a rematch.

"All that matters is what happens Saturday night," said the 30-year-old Velasquez.

Stakes are high.

A second loss to dos Santos, no matter how talented or skilled Velasquez is perceived to be, knocks the Mexican-American down several notches in an increasingly deep UFC heavyweight division. It may even make Velasquez the second-best heavyweight at his gym, American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif., behind Strikeforce titleholder and former Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier, who just inked a deal with the UFC and will debut next year.

"If [Velasquez's] performance looks like the first one, he better start coming up with some options," said UFC president Dana White.

And dos Santos, 28, has no shortage of things to fight for. In the last year he's provided for himself and his family like never before -- "my motivation comes from that," he said -- and, as an example, can boast a sponsorship from Nike. None of that happens had it not been for his knockout of Velasquez.

Reports suggest both fighters are fit for UFC 155, and while history says it's silly to trust that's true, we have to take them at their words. If nothing else, history also says they'll show up to fight no matter what.

As professional fighters, said White, "they both have everything."

He's probably correct, so it would be wrong to label Saturday's tilt a stylistic affair. Rather, this is a mixed martial arts contest, pitting two heavyweights against each other who can handle themselves in any realm. But mysteries remain, particularly regarding dos Santos, which adds another dimension because the Brazilian was set up to reveal himself one way or the other a little more than a year ago.

"For sure he's going to try and take me down, I know that," dos Santos said. "Well, I train a lot my takedown defense. But I train a lot my jiu-jitsu, too. I'm ready to fight on the ground. If that happens during the fight, I think I will do very well. For sure my intention for this fight is to knock him out again."

Mendez, Velasquez's trainer, said their game plan hasn't changed from the first fight, which before getting caught saw the wrestler stand in front of one of the hardest punchers in the sport. Whether or not the injury had an impact on the outcome is impossible to say, and Velasquez (10-1) refuses to play into it or offer excuses.

"It is a rematch," he said plainly. "We're fighting again. I’ve been thinking about it for a year."

LAS VEGAS -- There’s a theory among heavyweights that Junior dos Santos is vulnerable on the ground. It’s only a theory because nobody he faces is able to take the fight there. Dos Santos’ ground game remains a mystery because he has proved himself to be particularly invulnerable to wrestlers.

Yet wrestlers, as everybody knows, are stubborn optimists.

That’s where Cain Velasquez is heading into his rematch Saturday night at UFC 155 -- in the “retest phase” of a popular theory. The last time the former champion fought dos Santos he was dropped in 64 seconds in a nationally televised bout and coughed up his belt. It wasn’t the showing Velasquez wanted. And yet the asterisks hit the floor just as immediately as he did.

Velasquez, usually a raging bull -- like the one that nearly exsanguinated Antonio Silva in May -- had an injured knee coming into that fight. It was thought to be an ACL, and ACLs are necessary to execute singlet-minded game plans. (Or so you might think: Dana White told the media that Ricco Rodriguez once fought without the benefit of his anterior cruciate ligament ... but that's an exception).

Realistically, the subplot of UFC 155’s main event boils down this: Would a healthy Velasquez have gone so gently into that good night, or was that first fight a fluke? At the end of 2012 dos Santos finds himself in the business of putting such flukes into reproduction, while Velasquez tries to become the first man in the UFC to make dos Santos fight from his back.

“I’d definitely like to test it out,” he told ESPN.com with a sheepish grin.

And if that doesn’t work, Velasquez -- who trains with a similarly immovable object in Daniel Cormier at AKA -- will just have to improvise.

“I’ve seen the fight go so many ways in my head,” Velasquez said. “A TKO, a knockout, a submission, a five-round, grueling, back-and-forth kind of thing ... I’m going to take it however I can get it.”

Theoretically, there’s a way to beat dos Santos in there somewhere. It's Velasquez’s task to provide the blueprint.

Lauzon and the 'calculated risk'
Joe Lauzon was expecting to face Gray Maynard at UFC 155. Yet Maynard injured his knee and morphed into Jim Miller (par for 2012, injury-wise). What does the switch ultimately mean? For those looking closely, it means a battle of excellent, will-dictating scramblers is now on the docket for Saturday.

Lauzon -- one of the game’s great opportunists in capitalizing on mistakes -- now fights a guy who rarely makes them. If it sounds like a mean game of the old kinetic chess, it very well could be. An aggressive, cerebral grappler such as Lauzon -- who often sees things unfold in the cage in what he calls slow motion -- against a subtle, hard-nosed grappler such as Miller.

Miller is more of a thwarter; Lauzon a pouncer. Neither lets mistakes pass unpunished. And yet Miller has always been more of a quiet taker, while Lauzon’s style of grappling has earned him more end-of-the-night bonus money than anybody other than Anderson Silva.

Why is that?

“I think I’m not afraid to lose, that’s the big thing,” he told ESPN.com. “A lot of guys will be in position, but they won’t go for something because they’re worried about losing. But if I’m in that position, I’ll go for things. I think it really helps to set up my submissions with a lot of punches.”

Dos Santos doesn’t see 'rematch'

At the UFC 155 prefight news conference, the word “rematch” was obviously hot on media lips -- even if the first match between Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez was a 64-second piece of anticlimactic history.

People are enamored with rematches, no matter the context. There’s a romance to the idea of rivalry.

Yet, even though Saturday’s main event is technically a rematch, the current champion, dos Santos, distinguished the difference of perspectives between himself and the challenger.

“I think it’s more a rematch for Cain Velasquez than it is for me,” he said. “For me it’s another fight, and every fight -- I take my next fight as my toughest fight ever. So I get very well prepared for all my fights, [and] I that’s how I am now. I am 100 percent [ready] to go there and keep my belt.”

When opportunity knocks, middleweight Constantinos Philippou is quick to make the most of it.

Philippou has maintained this approach throughout his brief UFC career and it has served him quite well.

And if his recent history inside the Octagon is an accurate indicator, fight fans will discover Saturday that Philippou is a force to be reckoned with at 185 pounds.

The Queens, N.Y., resident takes a four-fight win streak into his bout against middleweight contender Tim Boetsch at UFC 155 in Las Vegas.

It is the type of fight Philippou has been dreaming of since he got an offer from UFC officials to make his promotional debut against Nick Catone on short notice in March 2011.

“The first fight [in UFC], I took on five days’ notice,” Philippou told ESPN.com. “I was thoroughly out of shape. But you can’t say 'no' when you get an opportunity like that; you never know if it’s going to come again.”

Catone won the catch-weight [195-pound] fight by unanimous decision, but Philippou -- who cut his vacation short to take the bout -- didn’t drop his head or make any excuses for his performance. Instead, he maintained the positive attitude that has served him well throughout his professional mixed martial arts career. He always believed that if the UFC came calling again and gave him the appropriate time to prepare, he would find success in the promotion.

Philippou did get another chance to show what he could do under normal conditions -- four more such opportunities in fact, and he has yet to disappoint. He's found his groove inside the Octagon and was ready to extend his streak to five on Nov. 17 at UFC 154 against Nick Ring. But Ring became ill hours before the fight and was forced to withdraw.

Was Philippou disappointed? Of course, but once again he stayed positive knowing that such setbacks have a way of working themselves out. Less than a week after his fight was cancelled, Philippou received some good news -- he’d been offered a fight with Boetsch. He immediately told UFC officials to pencil him in. His big break had come and no way was he going to turn it down.

But the opportunity wasn’t completely joyous for Philippou. The fight with Boetsch materialized after an injury forced Philippou’s teammate -- middleweight contender Chris Weidman -- to withdraw from the contest.

The two train together periodically at under the tutelage of former UFC welterweight titleholder Matt Serra on Long Island and have developed a good relationship.

Philippou knows that his teammate will rebound and will be rooting for him to succeed Saturday night. With the support of his entire camp behind him, he is eager not to disappoint. The fight against Boetsch is the highest-profile bout of Philippou’s career, and a victory will likely alter the course of his career.

“I will be officially established as a top-10 UFC middleweight fighter,” said Philippou, who has a pro record of 11-2 with one no-contest. “A lot of people still doubt my ability to fight.

“Beating a guy like Tim Boetsch will force them to recognize that I am a good fighter. Other than that it will be another great victory -- nothing more, nothing less.”

Despite the high stakes, Philippou didn’t make any major changes to his game. Striking is his bread and butter, but Philippou won’t rule out turning to his submission game if needed. And if matters go to the ground, things could get very interesting.

“

He knocked out [Yushin] Okami and went three rounds with [Hector] Lombard -- and that's no easy feat.

” -- Constantinos Philippou, on Tim Boetsch's evolving striking game

“I’m sure he’s good on the ground like everybody else; it’s just that we haven’t had a chance to see it yet,” Philippou said. “Like me, everybody thinks I don’t know how to do anything on the ground jiu-jitsu-wise.”

While the ground game could come into play, there is no doubt that the fighter who controls the standup action will have a big advantage during the three-round event.

Philippou is the more skilled striker, but he refuses to sell Boetsch short in that department. Besides, Boetsch (16-4) also has a four-fight win streak under his belt and has yet to drop a middleweight bout.

“He comes from a wrestling background, but if you’ve seen his last few fights his striking game is way up there,” Philippou said. “He knocked out [Yushin] Okami and went three rounds with [Hector] Lombard, and that’s no easy feat.

“His striking is up there. We used different techniques, but you can’t say he doesn’t know how to strike.”

Team Philippou is prepared to tackle anything Boetsch throws its way strategically. The lone adjustment Philippou has made is physical preparation.

Philippou was in tip-top physical condition on Nov. 17 for his showdown with Ring. And he was still in solid form when offered the match against Boetsch.

To avoid being overtrained, he slightly altered his pre-fight regimen.

“I was thinking that I was just adding to my preparation and after a few more weeks I will be even more prepared,” Philippou said. “But as time went by I realized that [the time before the fight] was too long and going back and forth to the gym every day, and being on a strict diet for five months straight, kind of takes its toll on your body.

“But it’s all right. I took a few days off and we worked through it, so [the extra time off] isn’t going to be a factor. I’m in pretty good shape and in pretty healthy condition. I’m ready to fight; I can’t wait.”

For the past few months, welterweight contender Rory MacDonald made it known that he craved a rematch with Carlos Condit.

Then on Dec. 8, MacDonald put on arguably his most impressive performance with a dominating win over BJ Penn. At that point, his craving turned into obsession. There was no suspense; it was clear that MacDonald had won all three rounds en route to a lopsided unanimous decision.

The only question remaining was whether he would request a rematch with Condit during a televised postfight interview. MacDonald didn’t let the suspense linger; after extending his win streak to four, he looked right into the TV camera and demanded a rematch.

Within a week, UFC officials began speaking to MacDonald and Condit about a second meeting -- on March 16 in Montreal. Each fighter has accepted the offer.

Overwhelming a mixed martial arts legend such as Penn can serve to bolster any fighter’s confidence.

Besides, MacDonald has improved in every aspect of his game since that June 12, 2010, third-round knockout loss to Condit at UFC 115.

Now MacDonald gets his wish. He’s a confident young man who is certain this time around the outcome will be very different.

But there is a matter that MacDonald and his handlers better take into account before stepping back in the cage with Condit -- he too is a much improved fighter since June 2010. And he’s not Penn: Condit won’t be physically overmatched.

“I’m a different fighter,” Condit told ESPN.com recently. “I’m a bigger, more physically imposing fighter. I’m in my prime right now. And I can’t say the same for BJ.”

Condit is aware of the beating MacDonald put on Penn, a natural 155-pound fighter. But he isn’t taking away from MacDonald. The fast-rising 170-pound contender has all the tools to defeat any of today’s top welterweights. And it must also be noted that MacDonald gave Condit all he could handle during their initial showdown.

But the confidence MacDonald has exhibited during his current win streak is countered by a hunger that Condit has not had displayed before previous fights.

“I’ve just come off a loss, the biggest fight of my career,” said Condit, the former UFC interim welterweight and WEC titleholder who will bring a record of 28-6 into the Octagon against MacDonald. “I’m fired up. I’m looking to come back with a vengeance.”

Condit has come to grips with his Nov. 17 unanimous decision loss to MacDonald’s training partner -- current welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre -- at UFC 154 in Montreal. But he isn’t hanging his head. Instead, Condit has concluded that the fight was a blessing.

“I proved that I can compete with the best in the world,” Condit said. “I almost had the fight in the bag. With some adjustments and a few tweaks in my game, I’m going to be able to capitalize on those moments that I had in the last fight.

“I think I did a pretty good job. I did the best that I could in preparing for Georges, knowing what I knew. Some things worked and some things didn’t; now we have to go back and refine. After a test like that, I have a lot of information to come back a much better fighter.”

Condit isn’t willing to share any information he garnered from the fight with St-Pierre, but he did say that fighting MacDonald again in Canada is a nonissue.

Their first bout took place in Vancouver, not far from MacDonald’s native town of Quesnel, British Columbia. MacDonald currently trains fulltime at TriStar Gym in Montreal, where he has lived the past two years.

What matters most to Condit is timing. He wants another crack at becoming the UFC’s lineal welterweight champion and a victory over MacDonald (14-1) will get him back in the title conversation. It also will give him a chance to exact his own form of payback on MacDonald.

“I’m also fired up because I was called out on national television [by MacDonald],” Condit said. “I gave him the worst beating of his life. I beat the snot out of him.

“He can come up with all the excuses that he wants; he’s got to fight me again.

“Rory has a lot of hype behind him; people are talking about him. A win over him -- another win over him -- will put me right back in the [welterweight title] mix.”

If the current landscape of UFC champions is any indicator of the future, 30 might be the new 40 in mixed martial arts.

The average age of today’s UFC titleholder is just under 29 years old. That number drops significantly if you remove old man Anderson Silva, 37, from the equation.

Keep in mind that’s how old these guys are right now. If you look at the average age of each champ when he won the title, it drops to an even 26.

That’s right, 26 years old. That doesn’t mean the 30-somethings on the UFC roster can’t or won’t win a belt, but it might mean we probably shouldn’t refer to any fighter 26-and-older as a “prospect.”

The reason I bring it up is because four lightweights are scheduled to compete at UFC 155 who are under the age of 30. All have shown flashes of elite-level talent, but none have fought for a UFC title.

Melvin Guillard, Jamie Varner, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon -- they definitely have time. You could argue none have peaked yet. Still, considering the trend of younger UFC champs, the best time for them to start a title run is probably now.

Do any of them have a title run in them? Let’s discuss their chances.

Melvin Guillard, 29, record 30-11-2

We’re all pretty familiar with Guillard’s strengths and weaknesses, so I’ll spare you any talk about his athleticism. He is 1-3 in his past four fights -- a train wreck compared to the five-fight win streak that preceded it.

It’s worth noting how the losses went, though. In the NFL, you hear stats about how a team is 4-8 but hasn’t suffered a loss by more than a touchdown. That’s kind of Guillard during this skid. He was never dominated. He is reckless, which cost him against Lauzon (he basically ran into a counter left) and Miller (taken down off an ill-advised flying knee). Against Donald Cerrone, Guillard's lack of confidence in that fight was obvious, but he still nearly pulled it off when Cerrone got off to a bad start.

Guillard’s problems are all mental. Yes, he needs to improve his submission defense, but more importantly, he needs to settle down and fight smart. Aggression is part of what makes him successful, but against better competition, you can’t sprint around the cage throwing haymakers and expect to win consistently.

It is interesting that of the four lightweights I'm talking about, Guillard is probably the most naturally talented, but by the end of the year, he might be 0-3 against the field.

Joe Lauzon, 28, record 22-7

There’s a lot to like about Lauzon, but of the four, his chances of winning it all are undoubtedly the worst. Historically, submission specialists just don’t become UFC champions. Champs have a ground game, but you don’t see many of them rely on it as much as Lauzon would have to. Frank Mir is probably the best example, and he won the belt eight years ago with wins over Tank Abbott, Wes Sims and Tim Sylvia.

Does anyone else think Lauzon won’t lose much sleep over this, though? His style will probably never earn him win gold, but it has seen him win eight "Fight Night" bonuses in his last eight fights -- five submissions of the night and three fights of the night. That’s crazy. That’s $445,000 in disclosed bonus money. Compare that to flying to Japan to get his head kicked by Anthony Pettis at UFC 144, where he probably made around $24,000. At some point, wouldn’t you say, “You know, Donald Cerrone sounds fun, but I think I’d rather shoulderlock Curt Warburton again”?

Jim Miller, 29, record 21-4

He is undersized for the division, but if Frankie Edgar could do it, Miller can do it, right? Well, Miller has a different style than Edgar, and it’s one that doesn’t translate as well into fighting bigger guys.

Miller fights as if he is the bigger man. He doesn’t dance on his toes. He plods forward. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it shouldn’t surprise you that all his UFC losses came to bigger guys with more horsepower: Nate Diaz, Benson Henderson and Gray Maynard.

A wild card to win the belt, Miller has the pound-for-pound skills, toughness and intelligence to become a champ. What it will ultimately depend on is whether he can modify his game when he runs into those bad matchups. It will go against the way he typically fights, but you can’t outbully a Maynard or Henderson, so Miller will have to develop more of a finesse game.

Jamie Varner, 28, record (20-7-1)

The source of what remains one of my all-time favorite MMA quotes: “I caught the top of his hard head, and next thing I know, my hand’s broke, my foot’s broke, and I’m getting kicked in the nuts -- a lot.”

Those were Varner’s words following a split draw to Kamal Shalorus at WEC 49 in June 2010. Shalorus seemed to target Varner’s jewels the entire fight with kicks and had a point deducted in the second round (and could have easily been deducted again in the third). Varner broke his hand and foot but outfought Shalorus in the eyes of just about everyone watching only to end up with a draw.

I reflect on that fight because it was the sort of humbling experience Varner actually needed. He won the WEC belt at age 23, and while there were never rumors of him not training, his swagger grew to a level that appeared to be self-damaging. The Shalorus draw was followed by back-to-back losses that ended with Varner not signing with the UFC after the WEC dissolved.

After he knocked out Edson Barboza at UFC 146, Varner turned to reporters on press row and said, “I’m back.” Physically speaking, I don’t think he was ever really gone, but he is in a good spot mentally -- confident, but not to the point he thinks a fight is over before it starts.

Varner is well-rounded and an underrated wrestler and can be difficult to hit cleanly. His toughest matchups will be against athletic lightweights with good submission skills who aren’t easily outwrestled (Pettis, Diaz).

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