Newly crowned UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum will face Cain Velasquez in his first title defense. Ariel Helwani and Dana White announced the news in the latest edition of UFC Tonight on Wednesday.
Werdum recently beat Velasquez for the belt at UFC 188 in June. The immediate rematch comes as a bit of a surprise, since lots of heavyweight contenders were at the ready and have been debated as Werdum’s first challengers, including Junior dos Santos, Andrei Arlovski, Stipe Miocic and Ben Rothwell.
Werdum and Velasquez served as coaches for the first-ever Latin American installment of The Ultimate Fighter and were originally scheduled to face each other last November. However, Velasquez pulled out of the fight with a knee injury and Werdum went on to beat Mark Hunt for the interim title. In June, Velasquez was finally recovered and ready to unify the belts, but got dominated by the Brazilian and ultimately submitted with a guillotine in the third round.
Velasquez later blamed the high altitude in Mexico City, where UFC 188 took place. Werdum arrived in Mexico weeks before the fight to get accustomed to the conditions, and it obviously paid off. Now, Velasquez will get the chance to smooth out his mistakes and capture the heavyweight title for a third time.
No date or venue have been set for the fight, yet.