The champion, Fabricio Werdum, is set to to defend his championship in a rematch with former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez soon. “I was away from my family for my training and then after the fight did some traveling for the UFC”, Werdum said via Fox Sports. If not then, he thought it might happen at the Super Bowl weekend card in early February.
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And he doesn’t want to wait until March of 2016.
In the other corner, Velasquez (13-2) bagged the heavyweight belt for the second time against Junior dos Santos in December 2012 via unanimous decision and successfully defended it twice before losing the title to Werdum.
Plus, White didn’t exactly confirm that Arlovski had done enough to jump to the front of the line to get the next title shot anyway. But if the Werdum vs. Velasquez rematch doesn’t happen until at least March, it’s unlikely that Arlovski would be put on the shelf for such an extended period of time, awaiting a title fight several months later.
Injuries have limited Velasquez’s activity in recent years as the showdown with Werdum was the 33-year-old Mexican-American’s first Octagon appearance since October 2013 when he scored a fifth-round stoppage of Dos Santos in a rubber match. “So we’ll see how this thing plays out, and we’ll go from there”.
The heavyweight division has again stalled, according to UFC President Dana White.
After beating Frank Mir recently at the co-event of UFC 191, Arlovski could be lined up to fight the victor between Werdum and Velasquez. Velasquez was forced to withdraw from a scheduled headliner this past November at UFC 180, prompting the UFC to book an interim title bout between Werdum and Mark Hunt, which ended in a Werdum win by flying knee.
This development comes a bit of a surprise considering that Velasquez was the fighter known to be more injury-prone.
But why is the rematch taking so long to materialize?
“For these guys to still be there doing what they’re doing, it’s impressive”, White said.
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“That’s when Werdum wants to fight”.
