MMAJunkie is reporting that the UFC wants Brock Lesnar to defend his world title against Cain Velasquez at UFC 119, which is rumored to take place on September 25th at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. They go on to say that there’s no agreement in place with the heavyweight champion but that the UFC will be talking to him about it this week.
There are a number of reasons why the UFC would be very keen to have the event take place in September, not least of which is the need to have a significant main event for their Indiana debut. There’s also the obvious advantage that a September title fight would ensure that the promotion doesn’t suffer the same loss of momentum as last year and it keeps open the possibility of the winner defending their championship at the New Year supershow. A September date for the fight would also avoid the danger of the title defense clashing with the build up to the rumored early-November date for the Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather supershow. The UFC has certainly moved in a way to keep open the possibility of an fall title fight, not only booking Velasquez on any of their summer shows despite him having last fought in February but ensuring that the winner would have a challenger in place by confirming that the winner of Junior Dos Santos vs. Roy Nelson would be the new number one contender.
However it should be noted that if the heavyweight champion agrees to the September 25th date, then this would be shortest gap between fights that Brock Lesnar has ever had with only the three months one week that elapsed between his defeats of Heath Herring and Randy Couture being comparable. Given that his wife Rena is about to give birth to a baby and the need to recover from the beating that Shane Carwin gave him early-on, its difficult to see Lesnar being willing to agree to fight Cain Velasquez so soon.
