The UFC’s most recent excursion to The Great White North finally has its own primary event. UFC Fight Night 150 takes place Saturday, May 4 in 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 meet from 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 struggle official yet, but Helwani reports that verbal agreements are set up an the contracts are just waiting to be signed.
We’ve been waiting for a few months now to see exactly what the main event of UFC Ottawa would be. In the beginning, it had been rumored to be a middleweight bout between Elias Theodorou and Derek Brunson which was widely panned by both fans and press as a fair main event. Instead, it seems that bout will be the co-main event, with 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 lately running into some legal troubles and still not prepared to go back to the Octagon, the UFC decided to proceed and book Cerrone and Iaquinta against one another instead. It’s a wonderful battle on newspaper between two of the top lightweights in the world, along with the fans in Ottawa need to be quite happy at this time about this being the principal event of their Fight Night card.
Cerrone (35-11, 1 NC) is 22-8 overall from the UFC with experience fighting at both lightweight and welterweight. He is now riding a two-fight win streak that includes back-to-back endings over Mike Perry at 170lbs and Alexander Hernandez in 155lbs in his past 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’s one of the most complete fighters in the UFC lightweight branch and despite being 35-years-old seems like he’s maybe the best model of himself he has ever been.
Iaquinta (14-4-1) is 9-3-1 from the UFC and is coming from a huge mad choice win over Kevin Lee in his last struggle. He’s really won six of the last seven fights overall along with his lone loss during that stretch coming to UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. That win series also contains a choice win over Jorge Masvidal which appears even better now that Masvidal only knocked out Darren Until at UFC London. At age 31, Iaquinta is in the prime of his career at this time.
It will be interesting to see exactly what the opening line is to get this bout, however when I had to guess I’d say Iaquinta could be slightly preferred. Cerrone, despite having an wonderful record inside the UFC, was the underdog against Perry and Hernandez and typically doesn’t get as much respect because he deserves. Iaquinta was the puppy against Lee as well, but generally is your favorite in his fights. So I’d guess it will be a close starting line with a little lean to the younger Iaquinta. In any event, this will be a huge bout and kudos to the UFC for receiving it reserved.
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