The UFC’s most recent excursion to The Great White North eventually has its primary event. UFC Fight Night 150 occurs Saturday, May 4 at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and my first reactions to the headliner are below.
Donald Cerrone vs. Al Iaquinta, UFC Fight Night 150
Lightweight contenders Donald Cerrone and Al Iaquinta will fulfill in the five-round main event of UFC Fight Night 150, according to a report from ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. The UFC has not made this fight official yet, but Helwani reports that verbal agreements have been set up an the contracts are only waiting to be signed.
We have been waiting for a couple months now to find out exactly what the main event of UFC Ottawa is. In the beginning, it had been supposed to be a middleweight bout between Elias Theodorou and Derek Brunson that was widely panned by both fans and media as a fair main event. On the contrary, it seems that bout will be the co-main occasion, for this fan-friendly fight between Cerrone and Iaquinta headlining instead.
The two Cerrone and Iaquinta had been calling for a superfight against Conor McGregor, but together with McGregor recently running into a legal issues and still not prepared to return to the Octagon, the UFC chose to proceed and book Cerrone and Iaquinta against one another rather than It’s a great battle on paper involving two of the very best lightweights in the world, and the lovers in Ottawa need to be very happy at this time about this being the principal event of their Fight Night .
Cerrone (35-11, 1 NC) is 22-8 complete in the UFC with experience combating both lightweight and welterweight. He is now riding a two-fight win series which includes back-to-back finishes over Mike Perry in 170lbs and Alexander Hernandez in 155lbs in his last two outings. After going on a three-fight losing skid in 2017, Cerrone has rebounded powerful in 2018 and 2019 with a 3-1 record since that time. He is one of the most complete fighters in the UFC lightweight division and despite being 35-years-old looks like he is maybe the best model of himself he has ever been.
Iaquinta (14-4-1) is 9-3-1 in the UFC and is coming from a huge upset decision win over Kevin Lee in his final struggle. He has actually won six of the last seven fights overall with his lone loss during that stretch coming into UFC lightweight winner Khabib Nurmagomedov. That win series also contains a decision win over Jorge Masvidal which appears even better now that Masvidal only knocked out Darren Until at UFC London. At age 31, Iaquinta is at the prime of his career right now.
It will be interesting to see what the opening line is to get this bout, but if I had to guess I’d say Iaquinta would be marginally preferred. Cerrone, despite getting an amazing record inside the UFC, was the underdog from Perry and Hernandez and typically doesn’t get as much respect because he deserves. Iaquinta was the puppy against Lee as well, but usually is the preferred in his fights. So I’d guess it will be a close starting line using a little lean to the younger Iaquinta. Either way, this will be a tremendous bout and kudos to the UFC for receiving it booked.
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