Junior dos Santos and his Knee Nearing 100%

Reigning UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos is feeling good and is reportedly nearing 100-percent health following a knee injury that had him on the sidelines.

Going into his challenge of then-champion Cain Velasquez in November at the first UFC on Fox event, dos Santos suffered a knee injury in training that even had him on crutches less than two weeks prior to the fight. He sucked it up and made it to the fight, crushing Velasquez, and capturing the belt.

He is now expected to defend his title against Alistair Overeem, who defeated Brock Lesnar on Dec. 30 at UFC 141. The only question has been when that could happen with dos Santos nursing his knee.

“I’m feeling great about my knee already. I think another 10 days I’ll be 100-percent,” dos Santos told Jon Anik on the UFC 142 Rio post-fight show on Fuel TV on Saturday night.

“I’m training boxing, I’m lifting weights, but I can’t train jiu-jitsu yet. But I think another 10 days and I’ll be training normally again.”

Once he is 100-percent healthy and training at full steam, dos Santos says he would need about three months to get his body back in fighting condition and be ready to step in the Octagon with Overeem.

The UFC has been scouting out a possible event at a soccer stadium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, most likely in June, so it wouldn’t be out of the question that dos Santos could defend against Overeem there. It’s more likely that a highly anticipated rematch between Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen is likely to head the card, if Sonnen can get past Mark Munoz at UFC on Fox 2, but either way, it could still be a possibility for dos Santos vs. Overeem.

“It could be amazing for me to defend my title here in Brazil,” said dos Santos. “It could be special. But it doesn’t matter where. I know it will be against Alistair Overeem, so I’m just waiting for the date of my fight now.”