Cain Velasquez, Junior dos Santos to meet in trilogy heavyweight title fight

LAS VEGAS – With their wins in the main and co-main events on Saturday night, heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez and former champ Junior dos Santos set up a third fight with each other.

UFC President Dana White announced following UFC 160 that the two will meet later this year for Velasquez’s heavyweight belt. Although White could not give a precise timeframe for when the fight will take place, when asked if it might be targeted for the promotion’s year-end card, he said it almost certainly will happen prior to that.

Velasquez (12-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) stopped Antonio Silva (18-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC) with little difficulty in the main event for the first defense of the title he took back from dos Santos this past December at UFC 155. The fight was a rematch from a year ago, when Velasquez also stopped “Bigfoot” in the first round. But this time, he did it in about half the time.

In the co-feature, dos Santos (16-2 MMA, 10-1 UFC) went back and forth with Mark Hunt (9-8 MMA, 4-2 UFC) into the third round. But late in the fight, the Brazilian clipped the New Zealander with a spinning wheel kick that dropped him, then landed a massive punch on the ground. The bout won “Fight of the Night” honors.

Velasquez and dos Santos first met at UFC on FOX 1 in November 2011, when dos Santos stopped Velasquez in just 64 seconds. That was Velasquez’s first defense of the belt after taking it from Brock Lesnar.

In their rematch at UFC 155, though, Velasquez dominated dos Santos for five rounds to win the belt back. And on Saturday against Silva, he defended it for the first time.

UFC 160 took place at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The main card aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and Facebook.

For full coverage of UFC 160, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site. And for more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

(Pictured: Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez)