Dos Santos Vs. Velasquez UFC Title Fight Odds Pick

The UFC is targeting November for a possible fight between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos for the heavyweight title, and the odds so far have Velasquez as a slight favorite in many places.

Can Cain come back from rotator cuff surgery and still be his old dynamic self? The champ of Mexican descent took out Brock Lesnar in violent fashion to win the belt but has been sidelined since.

While Lesnar was more popular and ferocious at the time in the minds of many casual fans, many true fans know that dos Santos, a Nogueira brothers protege with amazing boxing and good takedown defense, is the toughest test of Velasquez's young career.

The two men have one loss between them, dos Santos suffered it early in his career, and this could be one of the most anticipated fights in UFC history despite the fact that these two don't quite have the star power of a Lesnar or a Randy Couture or someone like that.

The key to this fight, which hasn't been officially set but is an inevitability, will be the takedown defense of dos Santos. If he keeps it standing and manages to stay on his feet, he has a slight edge most likely in striking, although it's close.

Velasquez has shown that he can recover from a big shot and then take someone down after being hit, as he did against Cheick Kongo earlier in his career. The odds for this fight with dos Santos of getting a takedown are less because of Junior's solid sprawl, however, and his underrated jiu-jitsu.

Cain is one of the most underrated strikers in MMA too, however, and he mixes up his kicks and punches better than dos Santos. He is fully capable of outstriking the Brazilian challenger as well.

While Velasquez has more tools to win this fight with, he is coming off major surgery and his health is a bit of an unknown at this point. He also hasn't fought a fighter of dos Santos' caliber just yet; Lesnar is more of a physically imposing freak of a specimen than a seasoned mixed martial artist.

This one is tough to call considering it is still a ways away but at this point dos Santos looks like a solid slight upset pick over Velasquez according to the early odds, and it wouldn't be surprising if we had a new UFC champ in the heavyweight division by the end of 2011.