Hendricks vs. Brown set for UFC 185, Potentially opening up a spot for Rory & Lawler at 186

[h=1]Thatch vs. Thompson now heads UFC Fight Night 60, Brown vs. Hendricks set for UFC 185[/h]

By: MMAjunkie Staff January 13, 2015 6:05 pm

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Johny Hendricks

The UFC has announced a major shakeup in the plans for the welterweight division, as one fight has gone from three rounds to five and another title fight has been scrapped.
UFC officials today announced that with Tarec Saffiedine out of UFC Fight Night 60, a main-card matchup between Brandon Thatch (11-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) and Stephen Thompson (10-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) has been promoted to the evening’s main event and will now serve as a five-round affair. Meanwhile, while former UFC welterweight champion Johny Hendricks (16-3 MMA, 11-3 UFC) was expected to complete his trilogy with current champ Robbie Lawler later this year, “Bigg Rigg” will instead face Saffiedine’s original opponent, Matt Brown (19-12 MMA, 12-6 UFC), at UFC 185.
The announcement would seem to open the possibility that Canadian contender Rory MacDonald will get the next crack at the UFC welterweight title, perhaps at UFC 186, which is scheduled for April 25 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. However, UFC officials didn’t immediately reply for a request for comment by MMAjunkie, and MacDonald is currently slated to face Hector Lombard at the event.
UFC Fight Night 60 takes place Feb. 14 at 1STBank Center in Broomfield, Colo. Meanwhile, UFC 185 takes place March 14 at Dallas’ American Airlines Center.
Thatch has won 10 straight fights. In March 2013, he headlined RFA 7, coincidentally in Broomfield, with a submission of Mike Rhodes. That eventually got him a call from the UFC, which booked him to meet Justin Edwards in Indianapolis. He won “Knockout of the Night” honors for his 83-second stoppage. He returned in November 2013 and stopped Paulo Thiago with a first-round submission in Brazil. An injury has kept him sidelined for all of 2014, though.
“Wonderboy” Thompson has won four straight fights since a loss to Matt Brown at UFC 145. Most recently, he took a unanimous decision from Patrick Cote at UFC 178 in Las Vegas. That built on knockout wins over Robert Whittaker and Chris Clements, as well as a decision win over Nah-Shon Burrell.
While the change pushes his return back one month, Brown now looks to rebound from a July “Fight of the Night” loss to now-champ Lawler, which served as UFC on FOX 12’s headliner and a title eliminator. Prior to the decision defeat, Brown had posted a seven-fight winning streak (with six knockouts) that had him within grasp of a title shot.
After former champ Georges St-Pierre vacated his belt in late 2013, Lawler and Hendricks fought for the belt in April 2014. Hendricks won the first meeting via unanimous decision. As Hendricks recovered from injuries, Lawler then defeated Jake Ellenberger and Brown to set up the rematch in December at UFC 181.
In the heavily anticipated rematch of their initial “Fight of the Year” candidate, Lawler earned the split decision, though most media outlets scored the fight for Hendricks. Still, Hendricks will now stay busy rather than wait on a recovering Lawler, who recently said he hopes to return to training next month.
More on this in just a moment.

 

This isnt surprising as hendricks recently said he is not that excited about fighting Lawler again.

 

I think he is live. I dont like the way Hendricks was taking some of those lawler punches. I dont think he liked it either.