Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos will return to mixed martial arts (MMA) action and put his 155-pound title on the line against top division contender Donald Cerrone in the UFC on FOX 17 five-round main event, recently announced for December 19, 2015 inside Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.
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The Orlando Sentinel first reported the news Thursday afternoon.
Dos Anjos (24-7, 13-5 UFC) picked up the title with a dominant decision win over Anthony Pettis in March. After the victory, dos Anjos revealed he had entered the fight with a partially torn MCL in his left knee. The 30-year-old Brazilian is on a 4-fight winning streak and is victorious in ten of his last twelve, which includes the win over Cerrone. He is 15-3 overall in the UFC. UFC on FOX 16 also featured a title fight in July when bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw beat former champ Renan Barao in a rematch in Chicago.
Dos Anjos and Cerrone did battle in August 2013, with dos Anjos taking the unanimous decision win. The two have gone back and forth via social media in recent months.
It should be quite the explosive affair when dos Anjos and Cerrone lock horns again in Orlando.
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Dos Anjos took on Nurmagomedov on the preliminaries, in what many considered Nurmagomedov’s biggest test as a rising star. The UFC held a Fox televised card at Amway Center in April 2014.
