Written by Derek Moody, September 10, 2016, at 12:09 a.m. Tweet to: @DerekMoody619
UFC 205 was almost too good to be true when seeing these superfights being added. Lawler vs Cowboy in New York was certain to do historic numbers. Before the polls could be created deciding who’s the favorite the fight was scrapped.
TMZ originally reported for reasons unknown that Robbie Lawler had pulled out of UFC 205. Now that a day has passed, MMAFighting.com reported Lawler decided he needed more time to recover from his first round knockout loss to Tyron Woodley.
Cowboy will still fight UFC at UFC 205 but he has no opponent as of yet. Cerrone even offered to fight on UFC 203 with only 18 hours before the card was due to take place in Cleveland. He’s always willing to fight so we may see him on a card a lot sooner than November due to his impatience.
Who Should Step Up and Fight Cowboy Cerrone?
Tim “The Dirty Bird” Means would be the perfect opponent for Cerrone. They were set to fight previously before Means was wrongfully suspended for unknowingly taking a contaminated supplement. Both fighters had very impressive wins at UFC 202 for the welterweight division July 30th.
Tim Means has the size advantage which is rare for Cowboy to face someone taller than him. At least in Lightweight he was the big guy in the division along with Nate Diaz who he struggled with. At welterweight there are several guys Cowboy’s height or taller so seeing how that affects him would be interesting. Means has the perfect skill set to rival Cowboy so it would come down to chin, heart and making a mistake.
Lorenz “The Monsoon” Larkin stylistically would match up great with Cowboy as far as the stand up goes. The ground game is a whole different aspect as Cowboy is very sneaky with his submissions. It’d be best if the fight never goes to the mat or Cowboy would see his hand raised sooner than later.
The stand up between these two would easily earn fight of the night. The high level striking they both possess with great chins would make for a very entertaining bout.
Johny “Bigg Rigg” Hendricks has slipped quite a bit since losing his title. He recently loss to Kelvin Gastelum on July 9th and could really use a win against someone in the top 10. If he wanted to catapult himself back into championship contention he should take the fight.
Hendricks would need to go back to the basics and really work his wrestling against someone like Cowboy. Earning a win on Cowboy at welterweight would put Johny right back in the picture and if he finished him then he could start calling out names.
What Will Happen to Lawler?
Maybe Lawler isn’t ready to train and get back in the swing of things. He did suffer a very devastating knockout that left him stuck on dream street for quite some time. After being on the receiving end of a knockout it’s best to have at least 45 days to fully recover before training with contact. The newest addition to the card is Rashad Evans vs Tim Kennedy. We’ll have to wait and see if Cerrone stays on the card and who his opponent will be.
