The UFC’s most recent excursion to The Great White North finally has its primary event. UFC Fight Night 150 takes place Saturday, May 4 at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and my initial reactions to the headliner are under.
Donald Cerrone vs. Al Iaquinta, UFC Fight Night 150
Lightweight contenders Donald Cerrone and Al Iaquinta will meet from the five-round main event of UFC Fight Night 150, according to a report from ESPN’s Brett Okamoto. The UFC hasn’t made this struggle official yet, but Helwani reports that verbal agreements are set up an the contracts are just waiting to be signed.
We have been waiting for a couple months now to see exactly what the main event of UFC Ottawa is. In the beginning, it was rumored to be a middleweight bout between Elias Theodorou and Derek Brunson which was widely panned by both fans and press as a mediocre principal event. On the contrary, it appears that bout will be the co-main occasion, for this fan-friendly struggle between Cerrone and Iaquinta headlining instead.
The two Cerrone and Iaquinta was calling for a superfight against Conor McGregor, but with McGregor recently running into some legal troubles and not prepared to go back to the Octagon, the UFC chose to move on and reserve Cerrone and Iaquinta against one another rather than It’s a great battle on paper involving two of the top lightweights in the world, along with the lovers in Ottawa have to be quite happy at this time about this being the main event of the Fight Night card.
Cerrone (35-11, 1 NC) is 22-8 complete in the UFC with expertise fighting at both lightweight and welterweight. He’s currently riding a two-fight win streak which includes back-to-back endings over Mike Perry in 170lbs and Alexander Hernandez at 155lbs in his past two outings. After going to a three-fight losing skid in 2017, Cerrone has rebounded powerful in 2018 and 2019 with a 3-1 record since then. He’s one of the most complete fighters in the UFC lightweight division and despite being 35-years-old seems like he’s possibly the best model of himself he has ever been.
Iaquinta (14-4-1) is 9-3-1 in the UFC and is coming off of a massive upset choice win over Kevin Lee in his final struggle. He has really won six of his last seven fights overall with his lone loss during that stretch coming to 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 Till at UFC London. At age 31, Iaquinta is at the prime of his career at this time.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly what the opening line is to get this bout, however when I had to guess I’d say Iaquinta would be marginally preferred. Cerrone, despite getting an amazing record inside the UFC, was the underdog against Perry and Hernandez and generally doesn’t get as much respect as he deserves. Iaquinta was the dog against Lee too, but generally is your favorite in his fights. So I’d guess it’s going to be a close opening line using a little lean to the younger Iaquinta. In any event, this will be a huge bout and kudos to the UFC for getting it booked.
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