A major welterweight fight between Robbie Lawler and Donald Cerrone has been announced for UFC 213 on July 8th, which takes place during International Fight Week in Las Vegas.
This will be Lawler’s first fight back since losing the welterweight title at UFC 201 in July of last year after being knocked out by Tyron Woodley.
That brought an end to a spellbinding five-fight winning streak that had saw ‘Ruthless’ string together a series of ‘Fight Of The Night’ performances, including defeating Johny Hendricks to win the belt, then successfully defending it twice against Rory MacDonald and Carlos Condit.
After his loss Lawler had been linked to a fight with Cerrone at the blockbuster UFC 205 event in NYC last November, but ‘Ruthless’ pulled out, citing a need to take more time off to recover from his previous bout.
‘Cowboy’ Cerrone will also be coming off a defeat after being TKO’d by Jorge Masvidal back in January, and that halted one of the best runs of form of his career in which he’d notched up four victories over Alex Oliveira, Patrick Cote, Rick Story and Matt Brown since moving up to welterweight.
The UFC’s pay-per-view event during International Fight Week is traditionally one of the most stacked cards of the year, and so a guaranteed barnburner betweeen two of the UFC’s most consistently entertaining fighters in Lawler Vs Cerrone is a good move by the promotion.
The fight is only the second to be confirmed for the show so far, with a heavyweight trilogy fight between Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem also on-board for the main card.
