(Ready? He was *born* ready. / Photo via @CowboyCerrone)
In an attempt to add a little more sizzle to the deflated UFC 178 lineup, a lightweight match between perennial crowd-pleaser Donald Cerrone and streaking contender Bobby Green has been booked as the new co-main event for the September 27th “Johnson vs. Cariaso” pay-per-view. UFC officials confirmed the match last night.
Cerrone, who was rumored to fight Eddie Alvarez at the event after being momentarily booked to fight Khabib Nurmagomedov, has finished his last four opponents in the Octagon — earning $50,000 performance bonuses for each victory. “Cowboy” most recently knocked out Jim Miller in a wild two-rounder at UFC Fight Night 45 last month.
Green is a perfect 4-0 in the UFC since transferring from Strikeforce, and is riding an eight-fight win streak overall. The “hood” practitioner is coming off a split-decision victory against Josh Thomson at UFC on FOX 12, a fight we’ll mostly remember for how talkative he was.
Bobby Green was originally booked to face twitter-rival Jorge Masvidal at UFC 178, but in light of the new arrangement, Masvidal will face off against James Krause. I know, this is all getting confusing, so we’ve put the current UFC 178 lineup after the jump. It’s still pretty stacked, actually, even though the main event is only like the sixth-most interesting fight on the card.
UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso (final lineup TBA)
September 27th, Las Vegas
Demetrious Johnson vs. Chris Cariaso
Donald Cerrone vs. Bobby Green
Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier
Tim Kennedy vs. Yoel Romero
Cat Zingano vs. Amanda Nunes
Dominick Cruz vs. Takeya Mizugaki
Jorge Masvidal vs. James Krause
Patrick Cote vs. Stephen Thompson
John Howard vs. Brian Ebersole
Jon Tuck vs. Kevin Lee
Manny Gamburyan vs. Cody Gibson