Former UFC and Bellator lightweight, Roger ‘El Matador’ Huerta (21-6-1, 1NC), now has an opponent for his upcoming One Fighting Championship debut, set for June 23rd as part of the ONE FC: Destiny of Warriors event.
News of Huerta signing with the Asian based promotion surfaced yesterday, and late Friday night the fighters manager, Ali Abdei-Aziz of Dominance MMA, confirmed Huerta’s opponent with MMAWeekly.com.
Huerta will face fellow friend and former UFC fighter Phil ‘The New York Bad Ass’ Baroni (14-14), who debuted with ONE FC last September at the Champion vs. Champion event.
Huerta is 1-5 in his last six matches and is currently on a three fight losing streak. ‘El Matador’ was at one time one of the high flying lightweights of the UFC division before a loss to Kenny Florian at UFC 87 in 2008 sent him on a downward spiral for which Huerta has not recovered. After dismissal from the UFC, Huerta found himself in a Bellator cage where he went 1-2 with losses to Pat Curran and Eddie Alvarez. Huerta’s last bout was a welterweight match versus War Machine (aka Jon Koppenhaver) at a local event in Texas, which saw War Machine win by third round TKO.
Baroni has seen a similar slide for his career, going just 1-4 in his last five matches. His last bout, his ONE FC debut, ended up in a unanimous decision loss to Yoshiyuki Yoshida at the Champion vs. Champion event in Singapore last September. Before that loss, Baroni ended a three fight losing skid by earning a win at a Titan FC 17 show by winning a decision against Nick Nolte in March 2011. That was Baroni’s first bout after being cut from the UFC for a second time.
In this video Huerta, Baroni, and UFC fighter Mike Swick found themselves in South East Asia where they ended up drinking cobra blood. The video is pretty graphic so PETA supporters may not want to watch.