After Donald Cerrone dominated Jamie Varner for a unanimous decision win at WEC 51 last month, he extended an open invitation to rematch in Varner's Phoenix home for WEC 53. After the bout, WEC general manager Reed Harris told MMA Fighting he'd let the two fight each other on every card if he could, but wouldn't commit to the possibility of a third fight between them in December.
Now it appears both Cerrone and Varner will be fighting on the promotion's Dec. 16 show in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Ariz. – but not against each other.
Cerrone (12-3, 1 NC, 5-3 WEC) will fight former IFL world grand prix finalist Chris Horodecki (16-2, 2-1 WEC) on the event's main card. MMA Weekly was first to report the news on Thursday and sources close to the promotion confirmed the fight with MMA Fighting.
Sources also told MMA Fighting that Varner is likely to be added to the card, giving him a chance to fight in front of his home fans for the first time in nearly five years. Varner said as much on his Twitter feed yesterday: "... looks like I may be fighting in my home town on Dec 16!"
Cerrone is coming off arguably the biggest win of his MMA career, avenging a 20-month-old loss to Varner in a lightweight title fight at WEC 38. Cerrone has been up and down since the loss to Varner, which was the first of his career, and hasn't won consecutive fights since 2008. He has twice lost to current lightweight champ Ben Henderson – once for the interim lightweight title while Varner recovered from injuries suffered in the first Cerrone fight and again at WEC 48 for the belt.
Horodecki was highly touted when he signed with the WEC, but dropped his debut with the promotion in the first round against Anthony Njokuani at WEC 45. He rebounded with a submission win over Danny Downes at WEC 49 in June and at WEC 51, he won a close split decision against Ed Ratcliff.
WEC 53 will take place at the Jobing.com Arena and the main card will air live on the Versus cable network. It will be the first Zuffa event to take place in Arizona. The location was selected by fans in a promotion with Amp Energy.
The card features two title fights – Henderson puts the lightweight belt on the line against Anthony Pettis and bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz defends his title against Scott Jorgensen.
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