Maybe Cain Velasquez was a lot more rusty than most people expected entering his fight against Fabricio Werdum.
Velasquez, who hadn’t fought in a year and a half, lost to Werdum by third-round submission at UFC 188 on Saturday night in Mexico City. The former UFC heavyweight champion showed signs of being gassed towards the end of the first round, which could have been the result of conditioning problems and/or issues with the altitude in his home country.
Velasquez’s big mistake came when he tried for a takedown in the third round and was caught in a guillotine by Werdum, who got him to submit almost instantly.
Congrats to Fabricio Werdum for putting up a great stand up game and of course that nice Guillotine Choke!! #UFC188 pic.twitter.com/uyvSVBHupZ
— GRNSF (@Grenasf415) June 14, 2015
The defeat marked just the second loss of Velasquez’s career. He previously had won four fights in a row, including two successful defenses of his UFC heavyweight title. His only other loss came to Junior dos Santos in his first title defense after beating Brock Lesnar to capture the heavyweight championship at UFC 121.
The win was the sixth in a row for Werdum, who improves to 20-5-1. He has put together one of the more impressive resumes in MMA heavyweight history (with the exception of his embarrassing performance against Alistair Overeem). He has now recorded submission wins over Fedor Emilianenko and Minotauro, in addition to Velasquez. He also is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion.
