Thiago Santos arguably gave Jon Jones the toughest fight of his career. Although many point to the Alexander Gustafsson fight, Santos is the only person to win a judge’s scorecard against the light heavyweight champion.
Not only did Santos give Jones a tough fight, but he also did so on practically one knee. He tore every ligament in the other knee during the fight. Even though he is injured, he would like the rematch when he comes back.
“Surely a rematch with him is a dream,” Santos said to Combate (as transcribed by BJPENN.com). “I want to recover from my knee. And I sure want to fight him 100 percent, to see how it will be with me being 100 percent, playing my game, doing what we trained. There’s definitely going to be another fight.”
Although Santos did not win the fight, he is happy with his performance. He left it all out there and hopes other fighters will do the same.
“I do not know if I shocked the world. But, I think I could leave a message, which is what I like to leave, to pass on. I think the most important thing is the legacy we leave,” Santos said. “In this fight I left a lot of people happy, I spent a lot of this fight overcoming the difficulties. I think I was having a hard time at the beginning of the fight. A lot of people would have stopped there, so at least a good message, overcoming, resisting, you keep trying, not giving up, I think that message I was able to pass to people.”
Regardless, Thiago Santos is still adamant about wanting the rematch.
“We want a rematch, yes, but let’s see what the UFC plans will be,” Santos said. “There’s a lot of time left, let’s wait for the scenes from the next chapters.”
