“Two exciting light heavyweight sluggers have verbally agreed to throw down October 1st in Washington D.C. as Aaron Rosa takes on Fabio Maldonado,” said UFC President Dana White.
Officials announced the bout between veterans Aaron ‘Big Red’ Rosa (16-4) and Fabio Maldonado (18-4) at UFC.com on Wednesday, pitting the two in a light heavyweight match for UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson.
UFC Live: Cruz vs. Johnson (aka UFC on Versus 6) is scheduled to take place on October 1 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. and will feature the first free title fight on television by the UFC since UFC 75 back in September 2007.
It will be interesting to see if Rosa can make weight for the fight, having fought as a heavyweight for his career. He weighed 261 lbs for his last fight, coincidentally his UFC debut, where he lost a third round TKO loss to Joey Beltran at UFC 131. The loss ended a four fight win streak for ‘Big Red’ who earned wins with Titan FC, Shark Fights, Bellator, and ABG: Promotions.
Maldonado, a member of Team Nogueira, has fought at both light heavyweight and heavyweight, so maybe the thought is if Rosa is unable to make weight, they can re-brand the match a heavyweight bout.
Maldonado had an eleven fight win streak stopped in his second Octagon appearance in June, losing a unanimous decision to Kyle Kingsbury at the “TUF 13 Finale”. The silver lining was that he earned an extra $40,000 for “Fight of the Night” in the losing affair. The Brazilian’s debuted with the UFC in October of last year, stopping Brit James McSweeney via third round TKO at UFC 120.
(Pictured Joey Beltran and Aaron Rosa at UFC 131)