Cain Velasquez: I will beat Antonio Silva no matter where the fight goes

This weekend’s UFC 146 will no doubt bring a star-studded lineup to the table. One of the major stars featured on Saturday will be former UFC Heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who will face Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva in the co-main event. Having only fought twice since October of 2010, the AKA fighter will have much to prove in Las Vegas on May 26th. Coming off of a devastating 64 second loss to Junior dos Santos at the very first UFC on Fox card, Velasquez knows this a make-or-break fight in the ultra-competitive UFC, one in which he must make a statement.  Velasquez commented on the current state of the UFC Heavyweight division:

“I think the talent has never been this high, as far as Heavyweights. The UFC did a great job of getting a lot of top-level Heavyweights into the UFC. And now having the guys from Strikeforce come in, we’re definitely going to have the best guys here, for sure. It’s going to be great. Everyone’s so competitive and everyone’s always getting better, so it’s a good thing.” – courtesy of Foxsports.com

Cain Velasquez knows the talent he is up against, and realized the type of mistake he made in his last title bout. He described it with the following:

“Just the game plan. There was no sense of urgency on my part to execute it. I stood on the outside too long and ended up paying the price for it. I just had to look at the fight and see what I did wrong. I had to go back into training and just kind of correct those things. The biggest thing you can do is take the things you learned from that and just move forward. That’s all you can do.”

Velasquez appears to be focusing on learning from his mistakes and using his training to correct them. It will be interesting to see just how he responds to his first-ever loss on Saturday when he fights Silva, who himself is making his Octagon debut. Velasquez’s training partner Daniel Cormier put a vicious TKO on Antonio Silva in the semifinals of the Strikeforce World Heavyweight Grand Prix, so he has a leg up in terms of training:

“I’ve been watching what happened between Silva and Daniel Cormier. I train with Daniel a lot. I have to try to be quicker than him. I think that fighting style with him will do well. I have to be good on the ground with my wrestling and jiu-jitsu. I think I can beat him with that, too. I think whether we fight on our feet or on the ground, I’m winning this fight.”

Velasquez heads into UFC 146 with the utmost confidence in his skills. He has the talent, tools, and cardio to beat any Heavyweight on any given day. How will he respond to adversity on Saturday night in Las Vegas?

Further Reading: Cain Velasquez: Fedor Emelianenko is the greatest fighter of all time