Junior dos Santos: If I punch Cain Velasquez in the head, he's going to go down again, knee injury or not

Surely you've heard it spoken of endlessly in the lead up to tonight's (Sat., Dec. 29, 2012) UFC 155: "Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2" event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although Cain Velasquez was soundly defeated by Junior dos Santos at UFC on Fox 1 back in Nov. 2011, having been knocked out in just 64 seconds, he went into the bout with a knee injury.

So you should just go ahead and act like the fight didn't happen.

That's the narrative heading into tonight's rematch and while it's one that is hard to disagree with, it's also one that totally invalidates "Cigano's" impressive accomplishment. So how does the Brazilian feel about so many folks chalking up his championship victory to a bum knee?

With a laugh, to MMAFighting.com:

"I don't know why people are saying that because the injury wasn't to his knee, I hit him in the head. That was really different. It doesn't matter if his knee was good or not, you know, if I punch him in the head again, he's going to go down again. I really believe that. I don't know why people are saying that. I was hurt too. I was with a knee injury too. I just enjoyed the better moment; at that time I was better than him and that's it. I won the fight."

That Junior, always so playful and classy.

As he mentions, he too was suffering from a knee injury heading into that bout. But he's amicable and putting together a second fight after Velasquez destroyed Antonio Silva at UFC 146 was no issue at all, especially with Alistair Overeem serving out his suspension.

Both men are healthy this time around too, or at least that's the word. So no excuses this time either way, right?

Right?